2021 Awards Finalists

The following are the finalists in the 2021 Deadline Club Awards contest. Winners will be announced at the annual Deadline Club Awards on Monday, May 17.

Register here to watch the awards stream.

1. Newspaper or Digital Beat Reporting

Anna Wilde Mathews, The Wall Street Journal, “I Want To Be With Her”

Janet Adamy, The Wall Street Journal, “Abortion, Guns and Trump”

Jon Schuppe, NBC News Digital, “High-Tech Policing”

2. Newspaper or Digital Feature Reporting

Amanda Chemeche, The Forward, “From Basra to the Chelsea Hotel: My Father’s Journey”

Brandy Zadrozny, NBC News Digital, “She Wanted A ‘Freebirth’ With No Doctors. Online Groups Convinced Her It Would Be OK.”

Joseph Goldstein, The New York Times, “They Shared a Bunk Bed Growing Up. Both Were Killed by the Police.”

3. Newspaper or Digital Spot News Reporting

Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg News, “Covid Comes to Donald Trump’s White House”

Jennifer Peltz, Jocelyn Noveck, Maryclaire Dale, Michael Sisak and Tom Hays, The Associated Press, “’A new day’: Harvey Weinstein Convicted, Led Away in Cuffs”

John Ryan, Lawdragon, “CIA Psychologist Threatened to Cut Throat of KSM’s Son in Quest to Stop More Attacks”

4. Newspaper or Digital Enterprise Reporting

Suzy Khimm, Daniella Silva, Nirma Hasty, Andrew W. Lehren and Sawyer Click, NBC News Digital, “Lured to America – Then Trapped”

Austyn Gaffney, The Guardian US with Southerly and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, “’They Deserve to be Heard’: Sick and Dying Coal Ash Cleanup Workers Fight for Their Lives”

Jeffrey Dastin, Reuters, “Watchful Eyes”

5. Newspaper or Digital Local News Reporting

David M. Schwartz, Jeffrey Basinger and Paul LaRocco, Newsday, “The Grumman Plume: Decades of Deceit”

Jose Pagliery, Kevin Dugan, Nicolás Ríos, Rebekah F. Ward and Team, Documented, “COVID-19’s Impact on Immigrant New Yorkers”

Lindy Washburn and Scott Fallon, The Record/NorthJersey.com, “Veterans Homes”

6. Reporting by Newspaper with a Circulation Under 100,000

Brian PJ Cronin, The Highlands Current, “The Fading Forest”

Julia Martin, Christopher Maag, Chris Pedota, Tom Nobile, Svetlana Shkolnikova, Keldy Ortiz and Team, The Record/NorthJersey.com, “He Murdered Three Women and Was Hunting a Fourth. These Women Outsmarted a Serial Killer”

Thomas Zambito, The Journal News/Lohud.com, “Black Families Forced to Leave Failing School District”

7. Reporting by Independent Digital Media

Staff, BuzzFeed News with International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “FinCEN Files”

Gabriel Thompson, The Intercept and Type Investigations, “As Coronavirus Spread, Financial Services Contractor Told Warehouse Workers They Aren’t Allowed to Get Sick”

Josh Dzieza, The Verge, “The Eighth Wonder of the World”

8. Magazine Personal Service

Elizabeth Kiefer and Jessica Pels, Cosmopolitan Magazine, “Personal Service: The G-Spot Doesn’t Exist”

Sylvia Varnham O’Regan, GQ, “When a Psychic Reading Costs You $740,000”

9. Magazine Profile

Brian Burnsed, Sports Illustrated, “What to Make of Murph the Surf?”

Danielle McNally, Gillian Laub, Maria Ricapito, Sally Holmes and Stephanie Clifford, Marie Claire, “The First Year Out”

Sean Gregory, TIME, “A Chef’s Mission”

10. Magazine Investigative Reporting

Jen Shecter, Joel Keehn, Margot Gilman and Ryan Felton, Consumer Reports, “America’s Struggle for Safe, Affordable Drinking Water”

Stephanie Clifford, The Marshall Project and The Atlantic, “When the Misdiagnosis Is Child Abuse”

Tim Schwab, The Nation, “Bill Gates’s Charity Paradox”

11. Magazine Feature Reporting

Meridith Kohut and Simon Shuster, TIME, “The Fight of Their Lives: One Month Inside a New York Hospital as a Virus Took Over the World”

W.J. Hennigan, TIME, “Hart Island”

Austin Carr, Bloomberg Businessweek, “The Cruise Ship Suicides”

12. Arts Reporting

Alex Vadukul, The New York Times, “When Black Models Were the Toast of Paris: Shailah Edmonds on a Lost Fashion Era”

Phoebe Eaton, Air Mail, “The Making of a Predator, Parts I (The Why of Harvey Weinstein), II (Bob Weinstein: Brother Betrayer?), III (Weinstein’s Wife)”

Talya Zax, The Forward, “Philip Roth doesn’t live here anymore”

13. Sports Reporting

Kevin Armstrong, Sports Illustrated, “Aamir’s Arc”

Matthew Futterman, The New York Times, “Sledhead”

Peter Keating, ESPN.com, “The Hall of Famer Who Runs a Funeral Home”

14. Business Feature

Christopher Cannon and Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg Businessweek, “How the American Worker Got Fleeced”

Jared S. Hopkins, The Wall Street Journal, “How Pfizer Delivered a Covid Vaccine in Record Time”

Jen Wieczner, Fortune, “The Case of the Missing Toilet Paper”

15. Business Investigative Reporting

Staff, BuzzFeed News with International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “FinCEN Files”

Juliet Linderman and Martha Mendoza, The Associated Press with the Global Reporting Centre and FRONTLINE, “Deadly Shortages: America’s Medical Supply Crisis”

Margie Mason and Robin McDowell, The Associated Press, “Fruits of Labor”

16. Science, Technology, Medical or Environmental Reporting

Garance Burke, Jason Dearen and Mike Stobbe, The Associated Press, “The White House vs. Public Health: How AP Revealed the Trump Administration’s Deadly War on Science”

Simon Shuster, TIME, “The Fight of Their Lives”

Feng Hao, Katrina Northrop, Lili Pike and Phil McKenna, Inside Climate News, “Hot Molecules”

17. Opinion Writing

Frida Ghitis, CNN

Justin Worland, TIME, “The Overdue Awakening”

Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, “Fighting Abuse, and a Deadly Virus”

18. Spot News Photo

Julio Cortez, The Associated Press, “Burning Racial Fire”

Malike Sidibe, TIME, “George Floyd Protests”

Petros Giannakouris, The Associated Press, “Fleeing Fire”

19. Sports Photo

Conrad Williams, Newsday, “By The Face”

Conrad Williams, Newsday, “Fleet Footed”

20. Feature Photo

David Goldman, The Associated Press, “Lives Lost: At Veterans’ Home, Towering Legacies of the Dead”

Jeffrey Basinger, Newsday, “The Other Side of the Curve”

Rodrigo Abd, The Associated Press, “Accompanying Jose”

21. Multimedia, Interactive Graphics, and Animation

Danny Kim and Paul Moakley, TIME, “Eye of the Storm”

David M. Schwartz, Jeffrey Basinger and Paul LaRocco, Newsday, “The Grumman Plume: Decades of Deceit”

Staff, Newsday, “‘Inside the Red Zone’”

22. Digital Innovation

Aaron Sankin, Evelyn Larrubia, Sam Morris, Simon Fondrie-Teitler and Surya Mattu, The Markup, “Blacklight”

Alison Killing, Christo Buschek and Megha Rajagopalan, BuzzFeed News, “China Built A Vast New Infrastructure To Imprison Uighurs”

Andrea Januta, Andrew Chung, Jackie Botts, Jaimi Dowdell, Lawrence Hurley and Team, Reuters, “Shielded”

23. Radio or Audio Spot News Reporting

Steve Kastenbaum, Westwood One News, “New York City Protests”

News Team, WCBS Newsradio 880, “Protests and Looting in NYC”

24. Radio or Audio Feature Reporting

Alison Flowers, Bill Healy, Sarah Geis and Shapearl Wells, Topic Studios, The Intercept,  the Invisible Institute and iHeart Radio with Tenderfoot TV, “Somebody”

Mike Hixenbaugh, Lata Pandya, Julie Shapiro, George Lavender, Marshall Lewy, Hernan Lopez and Steve Lickteig, NBC News Digital and Wondery, “Do No Harm”

Karen Michel and Tom Cole, NPR, “Composer John Luther Adams On the Arctic Sounds That Shaped His Work”

25. Radio or Audio Investigative Reporting

Noah Caldwell, Ailsa Chang, Jolie Myers, Robert Little and Sean McMinn, NPR, “Gasping For Air: Autopsies Reveal Troubling Effects of Lethal Injection”

Alissa Escarce, Max Siegelbaum and Mazin Sidahmed, Documented with Latino USA and Type Investigations, “At the Mercy of the Courts”

Chris Corcoran, David Beilinson, Jackee Taylor, Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley and Zak Levitt, C13Originals, “Relative Unknown”

26. Digital Video Reporting

Alice Speri, Lauren Feeney and Stuart Harmon, The Intercept, “Prison Officials in Kansas Ignored The Pandemic. Then People Started Dying.”

Arpita Aneja, Emily Kassie and Margaret Cheatham Williams, TIME and The Marshall Project, “Anatomy of Hate”

Brock Stoneham, Kate Sosin and Mike Basilico, NBC News Digital, “Assault, Retaliation and Abuse: Life as a Transgender Woman in a Men’s Prison”

27. National TV Feature

Carol Ross, Lee Cowan, Rand Morrison and Sari Aviv, CBS Sunday Morning, “Americans Without Water”

Kimberly Berryman and Kyung Lah, CNN, “Houston Evictions”

Staff, ABC News Nightline, “True Colors: The Price of Discrimination”

28. National TV Series or Investigative

Adam Verdugo, Kristin Steve, Len Tepper, Megan Towey and Norah O’Donnell, CBS News, “Military Sexual Assault: Norah O’Donnell Investigates”

Ahmer Khan, Angad Singh, David Talukdar, Isobel Yeung and Jackie Jesko, VICE on Showtime, “India Burning”

Alysia Santo and Elaine McMillion Sheldon, The Marshall Project and FRONTLINE, “Tutwiler”

29. National TV Spot News Reporting

Carlos Arboleda, Dana Roberson, David Kreger, Hari Sreenivasan and Sally Garner, PBS NewsHour Weekend, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg”

Marc Smith, Nico Hameon and Richard Engel, NBC News/MSNBC, “Richard Engel Coverage: Brink of War”

30. Local TV Feature

Dan Komarinetz, Spectrum News NY1, “COVID Clap Out Celebrations”

Digital Video Production Team, Digital Motion Graphics Team and Michael Scotto, Spectrum News NY1, “Street Level: Before Stonewall, There Were the Ballrooms of Harlem”

31. Local TV Series or Investigative

Alan Flamenhaft, Jean Salzarulo, Pauline Chiou, Scott McGee and Tara Rosenblum, News 12 Westchester/Hudson Valley, “Leaving to Live”

Anthony Cocco, Karin Attonito and Walt Kane, News 12 New Jersey, “Kane In Your Corner: The Defunding Debate”

Staff, Spectrum News NY1, “On the Beat in Brownsville: Inside the 73rd Precinct”

32. Local TV Spot News

Staff, Spectrum News NY1, “Tropical Storm Isaias Team Coverage”

Staff, Spectrum News NY1, “City Erupts as Biden is Announced President-Elect”

33. Daniel Pearl Prize for Investigative Reporting

Mike McIntire, Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Staff, The New York Times, “The President’s Taxes”

Staff, Reuters, Reuters, “American Injustice”

Anna Wilde Mathews, Christopher Weaver, Nora Eckert, Dan Frosch, Elizabeth Koh and Jon Kamp, The Wall Street Journal, “Nursing Homes’ Fatal Failures”

34. The Mosaic Award

Catherine Kim, Joshua Johnson, Janelle Rodriguez, Andre Brooks and Shalini Sharma, NBC News NOW, “Pride + Protest: A Conversation With Joshua Johnson”

Sara Luterman, The Nation, “Disability Politics”

Staff, The Marshall Project, “Reporting On and For Incarcerated Audiences”

35. The Les Payne Award for Coverage on Communities of Color

Staff, ABC News Nightline, “Turning Point: What America Owes”

Christine Romo, Cynthia McFadden, Didi Martinez and Kenzi Abou-Sabe, NBC News, “A Reservation in Crisis: Navajo Nation’s Fight Against the Coronavirus”

Krithika Varagur, The New York Review of Books and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project , “Minneapolis after George Floyd: A 3-Part Series”

36. Public Service Award

David M. Schwartz, Jeffrey Basinger and Paul LaRocco, Newsday, “The Grumman Plume: Decades of Deceit”

Margie Mason and Robin McDowell, The Associated Press, “Fruits of Labor”

Staff, Reuters, “American Injustice”

Questions? Please direct any comments to awards@deadlineclub.org.