Here are the finalists selected from nearly 550 entries to the Deadline Club’s 2025 Awards Contest, listed in alphabetical order within each of 36 categories. Winners will be announced at the Deadline Club’s annual Awards Dinner on Thursday, May 15 at the Harvard Club. Purchase tickets here.
NEWSPAPER OR DIGITAL BEAT REPORTING
- THE CITY “New York’s Cannabis Legalization ‘Disaster’” Rosalind Adams
- The Forward “Coverage of American Jewish philanthropy in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war” Arno Rosenfeld
- Reuters “Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic” Joel Schectman, Chris Bing
NEWSPAPER OR DIGITAL FEATURE REPORTING
- The New York Times “An Atheist Chaplain and a Death Row Inmate’s Final Hours” Emma Goldberg
- The New York Times “The Hotel Guest Who Wouldn’t Leave” Matthew Haag
- Streetsblog “Fake Chaplains, Faithless Scam” Sophia Lebowitz, Naftuli Moster, Gersh Kuntzman
NEWSPAPER OR DIGITAL BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
- The Associated Press “Guilty: Trump becomes first former U.S. president convicted of felony crimes” Michael Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Eric Tucker, Jill Colvin and Michelle Price
- Bloomberg “Crowdstrike Outage Explained” Amy Thomson, Shona Ghosh, Vlad Savov, Jordan Robertson and Ryan Gallagher
- The New York Times “A City in Crisis” William K. Rashbaum, Dana Rubinstein, Michael Rothfeld and the Staff of The New York Times
NEWSPAPER OR DIGITAL ENTERPRISE REPORTING
- The Associated Press “For migrant women who land in Colorado looking for jobs, a common answer emerges: No” Bianca Vázquez Toness
- The Associated Press “As India ages, a secret shame emerges: Elders abandoned by their children” Matt Sedensky
- ProPublica “The Unbefriended” Jake Pearson
NEWSPAPER OR DIGITAL LOCAL NEWS REPORTING
- Chalkbeat “From the classroom to the cafeteria: Hard lessons at NYC public schools” Michael Elsen-Rooney
- The New York Times “The Housing Crunch” Mihir Zaveri
- WNYC-New York Public Radio “Hot spots: NYPD data shows most shootings occur on the same blocks, year after year” Brittany Kriegstein and Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
REPORTING BY NEWSPAPERS WITH A CIRCULATION UNDER 100,000
- Crain’s New York Business “New York’s nonprofit shadow government” Nick Garber, Caroline Spivack, Eddie Small, Amanda Glodowski, Anne Michaud
- The Highlands Current “Modern Immigrants” Joey Asher
- The Star-Ledger “Food fight: How $13 french fries became N.J. town’s line in the sand” Karin Price Mueller
REPORTING BY INDEPENDENT DIGITAL MEDIA
- Inside Climate News “Captured: How pesticide regulators place industry profits above public health” Liza Gross and Peter Aldhous
- The Marshall Project, Reveal and Mississippi Today “Policing and Prosecution of Pregnancy” Shoshana Walter and Cary Aspinwall (The Marshall Project), Anna Wolfe (Mississippi Today)
- The Marshall Project “Mississippi’s Forever Voting Ban” Caleb Bedillion, Daja E. Henry
MAGAZINE PERSONAL SERVICE
- Better Homes & Gardens “Mindset Resolutions” Alice Oglethorpe
- Consumer Reports “Produce Without Pesticides” Catherine Roberts, Trisha Calvo, Joel Keehn
- Cosmopolitan “The Robots Have Come For Your Dating Life” Madeleine Frank Reeves
MAGAZINE PROFILE
- Fortune “How Big Can Robinhood Really Get?” Jeff John Roberts
- TIME “‘Putin Is My Enemy.’ The Revolution of Yulia Navalnaya” Simon Shuster
- Vanity Fair “Karen Read’s Fight” Julie Miller
MAGAZINE INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
- Bloomberg Businessweek “Unsafe Online” Olivia Carville, Cecilia D’Anastasio
- Consumer Reports “Keeping Our Food Safe” Lauren F. Friedman, Lisa L. Gill, Kevin Loria, Trisha Calvo and Joel Keehn
- Vanity Fair “Inside the Bungled Bird Flu Response, Where Profits Collide With Public Health” Katherine Eban
MAGAZINE FEATURE REPORTING
- The Atavist “The Last Shall Be First” Brian Fairbanks
- Bloomberg Businessweek “The Egg: A Story of Extraction, Exploitation and Opportunity” Bloomberg Staff
- The New York Times “The Deserter” Sarah Topol
ARTS REPORTING
- Artnet “The Art Detective” Katya Kazakina
- The Forward “Why did Barry Beckham, the heir apparent to Franz Kafka, vanish?” Allan Jalon
- The New York Times “Notes on the Culture” Mark Harris
BUSINESS FEATURE
- The Atlantic “The Mysterious, Meteoric Rise of Shein” Timothy McLaughlin
- The New York Times “How Cheerleading Became So Acrobatic, Dangerous and Popular” David Gauvey Herbert
- TIME “‘We’re Living in a Nightmare:’ Inside the Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town” Andrew R. Chow
BUSINESS INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
- Reuters “Fentanyl Express” The Reuters Team
- Reuters “OnlyFans Exposed” The Reuters Team
- The Associated Press “Prison to Plate” Margie Mason, Robin McDowell
OPINION WRITING
- The New York Times “If My Dying Daughter Could Face Her Mortality, Why Couldn’t the Rest of Us?” Sarah Wildman
- Newsday “Editorials about Nassau County’s troubled public hospital” Randi Marshall
- Vanity Fair “As Tensions Continue to Flare Over the War in Gaza, the Upper East Side Is Divided” Hannah Seligson
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, MEDICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING
- Bloomberg Businessweek “The Nurse Will See You Now” Caleb Melby, Polly Mosendz, Noah Buhayar
- Inside Climate News “Cashing Out” Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz
- The Verge “The Cloud Under the Sea: The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat” Josh Dzieza
SPORTS REPORTING
- The Atavist Magazine “The Extra Mile” Maggie Gigandet
- Fortune “Can Cathy Engelbert Handle the Pressure?” Emma Hinchliffe
- Rolling Stone “Sportsbook Nation” David Hill
BREAKING NEWS PHOTO
- The Associated Press “Shots Fired, Butler, Pa.”, Evan Vucci
- Newsday “Coming to America” J. Conrad Williams, Jr.
FEATURE PHOTO
- The Associated Press “Casting into the Mediterranean” Hassan Ammar
- Bloomberg News “New Americans” Krisanne Johnson
- Newsday “A Mother and Daughter’s Love” Alejandra Villa Loarca
SPORTS PHOTO
- Newsday “Professional Bull Riders in New York” J. Conrad Williams, Jr.
- Newsday “Manaea” J. Conrad Williams, Jr.
- NJ.com/The Star-Ledger “Game-Winning Basket” Andrew Mills
MULTIMEDIA, INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS AND ANIMATION
- Bloomberg “Why Europe Is Unprepared to Defend Itself” Tom Pfeiffer, Christopher Cannon
- Reuters “The fentanyl funnel: How narcos sneak deadly chemicals through the U.S.” Daisy Chung, Laura Gottesdiener, Drazen Jorgic, Kristina Cooke
- IEEE Spectrum “Where’s My Robot?” Erico Guizzo, Randi Klett
DIGITAL INNOVATION
- Bloomberg News “Visa Games” Bloomberg Staff
- Bloomberg News “Clandestine Shipping Hub” Serene Cheong, Clara Ferreira Marques, Weilun Soon, Krishna Karra, Yasufumi Sato
- Cosmopolitan “Sex After 60” Rosa Heyman
RADIO OR AUDIO BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
No Finalists
RADIO OR AUDIO FEATURE REPORTING
- ABC News “ABC Audio – Reclaimed: The Lifeblood of Navajo Nation” ABC Audio
- THE CITY “Hazard NYC: Coal Tar, ‘Poonamis’ and Thousands of New Apartments at the ‘Toxic Wonderland’ of the Gowanus Canal” Jordan Gass-Pooré, Samantha Maldonado, Harry Siegel
- Spectrum News NY1 “Crisis and Accomplishment : The Rise and Fall of John Lindsay” Anthony Roman, Errol Louis, Robert Hardt, James Ascuitto, Mariya Abedi
RADIO OR AUDIO INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
- ABC News “ABC Audio – Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery” ABC Audio
DIGITAL VIDEO REPORTING
- ABC News “Good Morning America Digital – Forgotten Collateral Damage: The stories you didn’t see in ‘Oppenheimer’” Good Morning America Digital
- Newsday “The Forgotten” Henry J. Salmaggi, Sandra Peddie, Shari Einhorn, Matthew Golub, Drew Singh
- Streetsblog “Streetsblog Video Reporting” Emily Lipstein, Dave Colon, David Meyer, Sophia Lebowitz
LOCAL TELEVISION BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
- Spectrum News NY1 “Mayor Eric Adams is Indicted” Spectrum News NY1
- Spectrum News NY1 “Protests Erupt at Columbia University” Spectrum News NY1
LOCAL TELEVISION FEATURE
- News 12 Connecticut “Tango Flight” Jim Mennino, Marissa Alter
- News 12 “Cannabis Contest: The Great Licensing Adventure” Tara Rosenblum, Audrey Gruber, Jean Salzarulo, Alan Flamenhaft, Scott McGee
- Spectrum News NY1 “SNL Choreographers: The women behind some of the show’s memorable moments” Spectrum News NY1
LOCAL TV SERIES OR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
- News 12 New Jersey “Victims of the System” Walt Kane, Karin Attonito, Anthony Cocco, Jessica Lee, Audrey Gruber
- Spectrum News NY1 “A Call for Help: When a Mental Health Crisis Turns Deadly” Spectrum News NY1
NATIONAL TV BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
- ABC News “ABC News – The Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump” ABC News
- ABC News “ABC News–Inside Syria: Assad Overthrown” ABC News
- NBC News “Richard Engel Reports: Fall of Assad in Syria” Richard Engel, Engel Unit Staff, NBC News Staff
NATIONAL TV FEATURE
- ABC News “ABC News Live Prime with Linsey Davis – 10 Million Names: Slavery’s Dark Past (ABC News Live)” ABC News
- CBS News “60 Minutes: Children of War” Scott Pelley, Aaron Weisz, Ian Flickinger, Warren Lustig, Michelle Karim
- Scripps News “In the Shadows with Jason Bellini: The Moses Videos” Jason Bellini, Linda Pattillo, Vadym Adamov, Steve Turnham, Matt Simon and Scripps News Staff
NATIONAL TV SERIES OR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
- 48 Hours/CBS News “The Assassination of Jeff German” Peter Van Sant, Liza Finley, Gabriella Demirdjian, Cindy Cesare
- CBS News “60 Minutes: Targeting Americans” Scott Pellley, Michael Rey, Oriana Zill de Granados, Emily Gordon, Jaime Woods
- Spectrum News “In US we trust: a crisis of confidence” Josh Robin, Spectrum News Staff
THE MOSAIC AWARD
- The Associated Press “Prison to Plate” Margie Mason, Robin McDowell
- Bloomberg News “Courting Injustice” Monte Reel, Sinduja Rangarajan, Michael Riley
- Scripps News “Sex, Lies & Deepfakes” Liz Landers, Cameron Couvillion, Nick Refuerzo, Linda Pattillo, Matt Simon, Steve Turnham
THE LES PAYNE AWARD FOR COVERAGE ON COMMUNITIES OF COLOR
- The Associated Press “Prison to Plate” Margie Mason, Robin McDowell
- NBC Nightly News and Today “Women sue companies that make hair relaxers, claiming cancer risks” Zinhle Essamuah, Yasmine Salam, Alexandra Turcios Cruz, Micki Fahner, Michelle Melnick
- Retro Report / KFF Health News / WORLD “Beyond the Battlefield: Double V and Black Americans’ Fight for Equality” Jill Rosenbaum, Brian Kamerzel, Cara Anthony, Kyra Darnton, Chris Buck
THE DANIEL PEARL AWARD FOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
- Reuters “OnlyFans Exposed” Linda So, Andrew R.C. Marshall, Jason Szep, The Reuters Team
- Reuters “Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic” Joel Schectman, Chris Bing
- The Wall Street Journal “Exposing Putin’s Police State–From Inside a ppRussian Prison and Beyond” Staff of The Wall Street Journal
PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD
- The Associated Press “Lethal Restraint” Staffs of the AP, PBS Frontline and the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism
- News 12 New Jersey “Victims of the System” Walt Kane, Karin Attonito, Anthony Cocco, Jessica Lee, Audrey Gruber
- The Wall Street Journal “The Secret Schemes Insurers Use to Pocket Billions From Medicare” Christopher Weaver, Anna Wilde Mathews, Mark Maremont, Tom McGinty, Andrew Mollica


