2014 Philip Meyer Award winners announced

IRE is proud to announce the 2014 Philip Meyer Award winners.

Three data-driven investigative reports were named today as winners of the 2014 Philip Meyer Journalism Award. The projects, using social science research methods, revealed how tens of billions of dollars were being used improperly by the Medicare Advantage system; discovered that temporary workers are increasingly being used to fill some of America’s dirtiest and more dangerous jobs with few, if any benefits; and exposed that government at all levels remains unable or unwilling to address the problem of rising sea levels while continuing to incentivize growth in those areas most at-risk.

First place is awarded to "The Medicare Advantage Money Grab," by Fred Schulte, David Donald, Erin Durkin, and Chris Zubak-Skees of The Center for Public Integrity. The project revealed nearly $70 billion in “improper” Medicare payments to health plans from 2008 through 2013. The investigation exposed how federal officials missed multiple opportunities to corral overcharges and other billing errors.

Second place is awarded to ProPublica’s "Temporary Work, Lasting Harm" by Michael Grabell, Olga Pierce, Jeff Larson and Lena Groeger. This series combined street-level reporting with sophisticated social-scientific analysis to expose a disturbing, little-noticed trend taking hold in industrial America -- major companies have turned to temporary workers to fill dangerous jobs in factories,  warehouses and processing plants, and they face a much greater risk of injury than other workers.

Third place is awarded to “Water's Edge--The crisis of rising sea levels,” by Ryan McNeill, Deborah J. Nelson and Duff Wilson of Reuters. These stories examined the continuing effects of rising seas on the United States and the country’s response to an increasingly watery world.

The 2014 judges were:
Sarah Cohen, The New York Times
Brant Houston, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Philip Meyer, Knight Chair emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of "Precision Journalism"

Read the entire press release.