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(April 16, 2025) — Congratulations to winners and finalists in the 2024 IRE Awards. The annual contest showcases exemplary work by members of Investigative Reporters and Editors from the past year. Awards will be presented at the 2025 IRE Conference in New Orleans on Saturday, June 21.
Since 1979, the IRE Awards have recognized outstanding watchdog journalism. The IRE Contest Committee selected this year’s winners from more than 540 entries across 19 categories.
“It's an honor and pleasure to serve as a judge on the IRE Contest Committee,” said Walter Smith Randolph, IRE Contest Committee chair and executive producer of investigations at CBS New York. “Watching, reading and listening to the entries always blows me away as it shows just how hard our members work and how talented our members are. The contest also helps IRE further its mission of promoting the highest professional standards. This year, we saw entries from around the globe from dozens of outlets.
“The judging of the contest also took a different meaning for me this year. We are currently witnessing a crackdown on press freedom, but the contest entries show investigative journalism is alive and well and our members will continue to hold the powerful accountable while fostering excellence in investigative journalism.”
Judges’ comments: This riveting and penetrating multimedia investigation takes an issue we’ve heard about in headlines — cargo trucks that smuggle migrants across Mexico to the U.S. border, often with deadly consequences — and brings breathtaking new insight to an opaque underworld. The team built a shareable database of more than 170 cases of trucks that were involved in traffic accidents, detained or abandoned between 2018 and 2023, to better understand how and why smugglers are able to operate. Interviews — with migrants who have risked their lives on these cargo trucks, family members who’d lost loved ones in truck-related deaths, and even a truck driver who had smuggled migrants himself — all revealed important aspects of how these dangerous operations work and the geopolitical forces driving them. The stories humanize and illuminate the issue, and hold governments on both sides of the border accountable for creating a “circle of impunity” that allows this deadly human smuggling trade to exist. Powerful work.
Judges’ comments: Over a decades-long career, Julie K. Brown’s body of work has persistently shined a light into places where few others are looking, to uncover injustices and hold truth to power. She broke one of the biggest stories of the last decade — uncovering New York financier Jeffrey Epstein’s pattern of sexual abuse against underage girls, which ultimately lead to the arrest and conviction of Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. While that story continues to spark reporting, Brown has continued to pursue stories revealing abuses of power against vulnerable people — from the suspicious death of a young sex trafficking victim, to the racial profiling of a store clerk arrested 258 times. She uses her talents as a probing reporter and vivid writer to tell unforgettable stories of injustice hidden in plain sight and the systemic issues behind them.
Judges’ comments: A compelling investigation that uncovered how marijuana legalization in Oklahoma has opened up opportunities for organized crime. Great use of public records and law enforcement sourcing that would have made Tom Renner proud. The series explored the issue through a variety of angles, from crime boss rivalries to exploited workers to community members who feel the law enforcement response has lead to racial profiling.
Judges’ comments: Bloomberg successfully sued the Department of Homeland Security to force its release of 1.8 million records on the controversial H-1B visa program. Those records helped fuel its investigative stories revealing how staffing companies gamed the system by filing multiple visa lottery entries for the same workers, resulting in bad outcomes for other immigrants and for American workers. In addition, Bloomberg has made the data publicly available to academics and other journalists to report on the United States’ antiquated visa program.
Judges’ comments: For this project on a black market system for importing dogs into California from puppy mills in other states, the Times filed public records requests to all 50 states for dog export records, as well as 58 California counties and other agencies. Investigators learned that the state of California was deleting import records. As a result of its stories, the state resumed keeping the required import records.
Judges’ comments: Journalists at CBS News and The Trace filed more than 200 public records requests nationwide to investigate how thousands of guns once owned by police departments have been resold and used in crimes.
Judges’ comments: Litigation by The Palm Beach Post failed to win release of the Jeffrey Epstein 2006 grand jury transcript but publicity from the newspaper's reporting led to a change in state law, which in turn resulted in the release of the documents in 2024.
Judges’ comments: Groundbreaking new data, well documented. Not the most exciting topic, but they made it compelling. A clear winner.
Judges’ comments: A very important story that investigates an emerging problem. Thorough work, great job.
Judges’ comments: A compelling investigation into a worldwide issue. Incredible.
Judges’ comments: This was an exhaustive investigation of a secret system of negotiated “clean record agreements” that hide misconduct of police officers from future employers — and often allow the accused to collect questionable disability pensions. The reporters fought for three years to get the documents, making FOI requests to 501 agencies. In the end, they reviewed approximately 10,000 pages of court records and conducted more than 250 interviews with parties involved in the agreements, regulatory officials and subject matter experts.
Judges’ comments: This nationwide investigation analyzed fatal high-speed police chases that resulted in 3,000+ deaths and 52,000 injuries. Most casualties were pedestrians or passengers; only 15 deaths were officers. The newspaper also found that 660 deaths and incidents were not reported by the police agencies. Most fatal chases originated after low-level offenses. The report was comprehensive, well-presented and documented.
Judges’ comments: LAists' investigation revealed an Orange County supervisor’s secretive grants to his daughter's nonprofit organization and sparked a federal investigation. The supervisor pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme that diverted nearly $8 million from a program to feed needy seniors during the pandemic — and resigned from office.
Judges’ comments: This reporting on Alabama’s parole system wowed the judges. The story found the state parole board wasn’t following their own guidelines, and incarcerated people due a second chance were overwhelmingly not being granted one. Prisoners were being denied parole while participating in a program where they worked unsupervised in the community. The coverage led to bipartisan pressure and advocacy. A conservative former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice even attended a parole hearing to defend a man in prison for stealing a nail gun from Lowe’s. After AL.com’s coverage, data showed a surge in the number of people granted parole.
Judges’ comments: Miami Herald reporters detailed a series of missteps by investigators and the state attorney’s office during an investigation into a deadly boating crash. Reporters meticulously reviewed public records and interviewed witnesses who were never contacted by police and whose version of events differed from what investigators concluded. Through superb storytelling and attention to detail, reporters pushed for answers in the investigation and influenced a Florida senator to introduce legislation to toughen boating laws.
Judges’ comments: In an exhaustive, winding investigation reported over months, The Arizona Republic tied the deadly beating of a 16-year-old to a string of assaults by a gang of elite teenagers. The reporting showed significant cover-up attempts, community outrage and inaction by local police who appeared to look the other way as teen assaults mounted up, months before one turned deadly.
Judges’ comments: Injustice Watch’s monthslong reporting revealed how many tenants in Chicago are stuck in hazardous living conditions, dealing with higher rents while their rights are often trampled by landlords, judges and city leaders. A compelling read with lots of strong anecdotes and heavy data analysis, the reporters’ work led to reform in Cook County.
Judges’ comments: An important and empathetic investigation into the issues that strain Wisconsin’s rapidly growing assisted living industry, revealing how the state allows staff with little to no training to care for residents. The story significantly serves the public interest, and the reporters took their time to approach this story with care in service of their readers. It prompted lawmakers to promise change and led to more investigative projects.
Judges’ comments: A gripping and graphic reconstruction of the moments leading up to a fire that broke out inside the locked cell of a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, killing 40 men and injuring dozens of others. The reporting team created a stunning visual and audio investigation of events, using 3D models, an examination of 16 hours of CCTV footage from inside the detention center which was leaked by a source, and thousands of pages of official documents with interviews and forensics reports. Firsthand accounts from survivors convey the human toll of the tragedy, and innovative techniques uncover new facts that were referenced by the Mexican Senate in its own investigation of the incident.
Judges’ comments: An extremely creative visual investigation in which a team of journalists managed to identify the likely perpetrators of executions, mass arsons and other suspected war crimes carried out by a Sudanese paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces. The journalists drew heavily on a resource made available by the Rapid Support Forces itself: propaganda videos uploaded to the Internet via Elon Musk’s Starlink system. The team worked with translators to overcome language barriers and identified key leaders who appear in the videos. They used visual analysis techniques to show commanders were near the scenes of mass killings of unarmed people and other potential war crimes. They mapped out the paramilitary’s command structure, interviewed several victims and even landed an interview with a field commander of the paramilitary. Amazing work that changed the world’s perception of the war in Sudan, which has received much less attention than other big conflicts going on today.
Judges’ comments: This groundbreaking investigation expanded on the original story with impressive follow-ups and a major change in national policy as a result of the revelations. Judges admired the innovative investigative techniques and the overall production. A passenger who saw the original story and was stopped for inspection shot the encounter on his phone, showing in real time how law enforcement agents were carrying out these “cold consent encounters” at departure gates. And the Department of Justice ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration to suspend these encounters, a major result of the investigation.
Judges’ comments: The investigation into questionable water contracts is a classic tale of government waste and corruption. The story title, “Drained,” stemmed from customers who were drained for years from disputing unusually high, unexplained water bills. The people who paid the bills were financially drained as well as taxpayers supporting the water infrastructure. As a result of the story, seven Houston water department employees and contractors were charged and the director of the water department resigned. And if that weren’t enough, questions were raised about a former city official at the center of the investigation and a so-called charity. Accountability journalism at its best.
Judges’ comments: The story revealed a growing problem with squatters and prompted major change that benefits homeowners. The reporting revealed a loophole in the law and led to criminal charges against the accused squatter highlighted in the story. The station captured in real time how a homeowner was arrested after evicting a squatter.
Judges’ comments: This four-year investigation wowed the judges. WSMV was relentless in investigating a predator, seeing him brought to justice and holding the systems accountable that failed to stop him sooner. Jeremy Finley meticulously documented 26 reports of sexual assault against a massage therapist and the mishandling of the investigations by police and the state health department. The storytelling was riveting complete with stunning twists and reveals. Dogged reporting led to the arrest and prosecution of the predator and an overhaul of the processes within Nashville’s sex crimes unit.
Judges’ comments: This is brave and important investigative reporting. Williams had a lot of moral clarity and did not mince words in exposing white supremacist groups showing up — and in some cases growing in numbers — in Nashville and elsewhere in Tennessee. He showed great courage in staying on the hate beat while facing threats and significant pushback from certain officials and popular personalities from fringe groups.
Judges’ comments: This reporting challenged authorities and uncovered lessons about how a St. Louis school shooter could have been stopped and lives could have been saved. The judges were impressed by the pursuit of answers in what went wrong during the shooting and emergency response. The investigative team at First Alert 4 obtained records that were never publicly released. Combined with compelling accounts from the families of the victims, this was an excellent investigative special.
Judges’ comments: This was a well-executed rolling investigation complete with solid storytelling, a number of emotional interviews and stunning body camera video. The story uncovered a legal loophole in Wisconsin law allowing unlicensed drivers to avoid criminal charges for driving without a license, despite some having as many as 36 offenses. 12 News Investigates used public records and accounts from crash victims, witnesses and families to expose the loophole and deadly crashes tied to these drivers and then push lawmakers to fix it.
Judges’ comments: Great investigative work, heads above the rest. They managed to make something from the past relevant today. The database is amazing.
Judges’ comments: Fantastic storytelling and very easy listening. Good undercover work.
Judges’ comments: A great sit down with a Russian spy. Good reporting.
Judges’ comments: The tragic death of a special ed instructional assistant in Texas sparked this thoughtful investigation into a widespread pattern of injuries caused by violent outbursts from students. Using state and federal data and interviews with special ed teachers, academic researchers and school administrators, the reporter found that much of the problem lies in low pay and staffing shortages in special education classrooms, where there are not enough adults to safely manage students. The stories are told with sensitivity, clarity and an eye to systemic failures.
Judges’ comments: The risks of living in a rental unit with peeling lead paint are known, and governments have policies and funding meant to tackle the issue. So why are so many children — especially in Black and Hispanic families — still registering dangerous levels of lead in their blood? That’s what Nina Sparling asks in this thorough and approachable investigation of Rhode Island’s spotty efforts to protect tenants from lead paint with patchwork enforcement. Her investigation makes a hefty topic digestible. Her reporting following a pregnant woman with children as she tries to hold her landlord accountable for hazardous lead paint violations, who ends up losing her home in the process, was particularly affecting. She identifies the problems plaguing lead paint remediation and profiles some cities that are working towards solutions.
Judges’ comments: Students brought this novel investigation to life with a ton of detail and analysis, as well as strong explanatory reporting on the use of nonprofits to get around lobbying rules. The judges were impressed by the amount of data analyzed and the professional final product that included an interactive database for readers to look up their members of Congress.
Judges’ comments: An original and well-documented series on the perils of daycare centers in New York and nationally. The students’ work provided invaluable advice for parents and gave good context into the plight of daycare workers. It featured a powerful interview with parents of a child who died in a negligent daycare center, as well as a strong story on wage theft.
Judges’ comments: A clear winner. This was a colossal effort for 24 hours, with journalists waking up in the middle of the night and working well together. First published at 3:45 a.m. and updated several times in the following hours, the strong narrative combined with excellent audio, video and graphics. Follow-up investigations added crucial context to what happened.
Judges’ comments: Great effort in these stories. Wonderfully written. The work takes us there and creates a vivid picture. Great accountability reporting showing how systemic failures only made matters worse.
Judges’ comments: One of the best entrants among an extremely competitive set of finalists, this comprehensive — and moving — series of stories describes how the NFL set up a fund in 2015 to compensate former football players who are suffering from concussion-related dementia. But in the years since, the fund has blocked many ex-players with valid claims from receiving compensation, the investigation found. Readers meet people like Irv Cross, a former player and high-profile broadcaster who was diagnosed with dementia so severe that he couldn’t drive and erupted in outbursts of anger. But under the strict rules established by the concussion fund, Cross didn’t qualify for payments. After he died, an autopsy confirmed he had CTE, a brain disease tied to concussions. Numerous human stories like this help guide readers through the complex legal and financial history of the concussion fund - and help drive home a call for change. The Post put a monumental effort into this project, and it showed.
Judges’ comments: Among the extremely competitive group of finalists in the sports investigations category, ESPN’s blockbuster investigation was one of the standouts.
Superstar baseball player Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers, originally from Japan, trusted his Japanese-language interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, to function in the U.S. environment. He even let the interpreter set up his bank account. Investigative reporter Tisha Thompson received a tip that the feds were investigating a man running an illegal gambling service, and that huge sums of money had been transferred to this service from Ohtani’s bank account. The ESPN team gathered facts, then landed a crucial interview with the interpreter, who made contradictory statements about the money transfers and admitted he’d run up big gambling losses. ESPN’s first story based on those interviews led to more stories and more revelations. It became clear that the interpreter had stolen from Ohtani’s bank account to cover gambling debts. A federal investigation resulted in the interpreter’s indictment, guilty plea to stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani and a sentence of 57 months in federal prison. Contest judges were impressed with ESPN’s aggressive beat reporting and resourcefulness on one of the biggest, most competitive stories in the sports world in 2024. This one’s a home run.
Judges’ comments: A very strong entry in the extremely competitive sports investigation category, this investigation highlights a little-known phenomenon: a growing network of predatory football programs that offer high school graduates a chance to play an extra season in the hopes of impressing college recruiters and winning an athletic scholarship. In many cases the players are paying thousands of dollars for services that are often never delivered, and in this largely unregulated system, their health and safety is at risk. This well-written project included excellent human interest interviews with young football players, good use of public records, along with strong visuals, including photos of the players’ cramped quarters and bad food. A disturbing interview with the organizer of a key postgrad league and an investigation of his nonprofit’s questionable activity helped confirm this project’s place as an IRE finalist.
Judges’ comments: A very strong entry in an extremely competitive category, this project takes a deep-dive look at how new NCAA rules that allow student-athletes to earn money for their name, image and likeness — NIL for short — are now being manipulated in ways that can harm the students. As one story in the project puts it, “The coaches are free to make and break promises with few repercussions.” With a focus on college football, including many famous teams and names, it’s an exploration of unintended consequences.
Judges’ comments: “Fat Leonard” possesses important elements you expect in a hard-hitting investigative book with storytelling skills tempting a reader to turn the page. Author Craig Whitlock details scenes like gourmet dinner menus, allowing us to visualize how Fat Leonard won over high-ranking military officers and stole tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. The reporting and writing were superb.
Judges’ comments: Author Jim Morris takes four decades of heavy scientific reporting, making it an easy, intriguing read. The narrative flow helps readers understand the human price and repeated under-regulation of factories through the stories of Goodyear workers.
Judges’ comments: In the wake of Maine’s deadliest mass shooting, Scripps News revealed that local law enforcement knew about the shooter’s mental decline and access to guns before the October 2023 incident in Lewiston, but they failed to use state yellow and red flag laws designed specifically to prevent this type of violence. This intrepid reporting team sought to find out why. Relying on court records, public documents and hard-hitting interviews, they exhibited the best in investigative journalism and engaging video storytelling.
Judges’ comments: This short film from Mother Jones epitomizes the power of character-driven, documentary storytelling. Through intimate access and tenacious filming, the reporting team unspooled the tragic story of a mother’s quest for answers in the death of her teenage son after a police chase in the Crow Nation in Montana. Blossom Old Bull’s struggle is just one example of what so many Native families face after the deaths and disappearances of their loved ones — which is silence from government officials. But the film also shows Blossom finding agency and resolution herself. The filmmakers clearly earned the trust of their characters, which only added to the emotional strength of the film.
Judges’ comments: This concise but powerful documentary casts a sensitive light on a topic of international importance — how the ruling party in Rwanda has used the NBA to launder its image despite allegations of human rights violations, and how the NBA has turned a blind eye to those violations in its zeal for global expansion. The reporting team at ESPN forces one of America’s most beloved sports leagues to confront its role in abetting autocratic regimes abroad, even as that league puts forward a domestic image that embraces Black Lives Matter and other civil rights causes.
Judges’ comments: The "On Our Watch" team at KQED provide both riveting storytelling and an extensive investigation that is a model for how fact-based, document-based, data-based, audio-based and human-centered investigative journalism should be executed and reported. The reporting team went deeper in their investigation of corruption, abusive guards and indifferent corrections officials than local, state or federal investigators. They documented instances of state officials either lying or being ignorant of key facts; obtained a blizzard of documents and audio recordings using records requests and lawsuits; developed confidential sources who provided documents and recordings; demonstrated extremely careful and transparent storytelling; navigated sensitive and difficult interviews; and persisted despite state agency efforts to stall the release of critical records and issue misleading statements about facts. This investigation is a textbook example of how to tirelessly pursue truth and accountability, and then how to provide the complicated details, the findings, and the human costs in intensely compelling and compassionate audio storytelling.
Judges’ comments: NPR's "Looking the Other Way" does an excellent job of illuminating how a local story about a scandal in the Democratic mayor's office in Los Angeles became one with national — and international — implications. The focus on accountability was especially strong. Never satisfied with statements from officials that appeared to contradict others, the NPR team went to great lengths to interview sources who had not spoken on the record before, and also obtained tape and documents that had not yet been made public. What appeared to be a yearslong investigation was edited down to a tightly edited, masterfully produced and compelling two-part series, displaying a deft storytelling prowess that felt almost effortless.
Winners and finalists were not awarded for the “Video - Division IV” and “Student - Small” categories in the 2024 IRE Awards.
Contest entries are screened and judged by IRE members who are working journalists. IRE upholds the highest ethical standards in its contests to ensure that all judging is free from undue influence. The IRE Contest Committee is independent from the IRE Board of Directors. Committee members are either elected by IRE membership or appointed by the executive director. Serving on the committee represents a significant sacrifice on the part of the individual contest judge — and often an entire newsroom — that may have done outstanding investigative work. Visit the contest FAQ page for more information. For questions or concerns about the IRE Awards please contact Doug Meigs, dougm@ire.org.
To ensure fairness and transparency, some judges were not present during deliberations in specific categories due to potential conflicts of interest. They were:
Florencia Rodríguez Altube, Ana E. Azpúrua, Howard Berkes, Stephanie Bertini, Sanjana Bhambhani, Suhail Bhat, Denise Blostein, Jody Brannon, Daarel Burnette II, Dakin Campbell, Jimmy Cloutier, Judith Conte, Russell Contreras, Shirsho Dasgupta, Jessica De Leon, Jayme Fraser, Beimeng Fu, Emma Gallegos, Lori Gliha, Luis Joel Méndez González, Andrea Gutierrez, Lauren Hakimi, Louis Hansen, Josh Hinkle, Sally Ho, Sasha Hupka, Kristin Hussey, Alex Ip, Ross Jones, Ezra Kaplan, Jared Kofsky, Marisa Kwiatkowski, A.J. Lagoe, Katie LaGrone, Jonathan Larsen, Hyuntaek (Tag) Lee, Coleman LeMaster, Katie Licari, Pei-Yu Lin, Megan Luther, Dennis Lyons, Sayyara Mammadova, Eileen Markey, Kathleen McGrory, Caora McKenna, Lauren Mucciolo, Steve Myers, Nicole Noren, Peter Ongera, Jennifer Palmer, Christopher Peak, Cheryl Phillips, Rhonda Prast, Karyn Pugliese, Cierra Putman, Mike Reicher, Damaso Reyes, Paul Saltzman, Amritpal Kaur Sandhu-Longoria, Hilke Schellmann, Vera Shang, Samantha Smink, Dylan Smith, Mallory Sofastaii, Kameel Stanley, Joce Sterman, Ryan Thedwall, Tejal Wakchoure
Thank you, judges and screeners!
Investigative Reporters and Editors is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting. IRE provides training, resources and a community of support to thousands of journalists around the world.
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