The National Journalism Center — a project of Young America’s Foundation — and the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation are honored to announce that Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics won the Second Annual Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism Wednesday evening at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Crabtree was nominated for her investigative coverage of the United States Secret Service, especially her reporting on the fallout from the first assassination attempt on President-elect Donald Trump. Her deeply sourced coverage revealed an agency reeling from mismanagement and political gamesmanship, each placing the public and high-profile figures in harm’s way. For her first-place finish, Crabtree received $100,000 in prize winnings.
“What she uncovered directly impugned the Secret Service’s motto, ‘Worthy of Trust and Confidence,’” said RealClearPolitics’s Washington editor Carl Cannon. “What her reporting showed is that the Secret Service, just like other once revered federal agencies, including the FBI, has fallen prey to political forces. This is an agency with an annual budget exceeding $3 billion with a single overarching mission: Protect the president, former presidents, and future presidents — and their families.”
He added, “Yet this series is not just about Donald Trump. The Secret Service’s inept leadership and the fallout over its misplaced priorities put our Republic at risk.”
Crabtree joins journalists Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Bari Weiss who won the first annual Dao Prize for their Twitter Files series.
Runners-up for the Second Annual Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism included the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky, who was nominated for his coverage of a Biden White House executive order that allowed partisan nonprofits to influence voter turnout, and the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli, who was nominated for her exceptional firsthand, on-the-ground reporting on the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Runners-up were awarded $10,000 each.
In addition to the main prize winner and runners-up, the Dao Prize launched two new categories for its second year. The Dallas Morning News won first place and was awarded $10,000 for the “best local journalism” category for producing “Bleeding Out: A Public Health Crisis in the American Trauma System.” The investigative series by Ari Sen, Lauren Caruba, and Smiley Pool exposed critical gaps in trauma care, revealing that many lives could be saved with better access to blood transfusions in the field.
The Dallas Morning News also took first place and the $10,000 prize in the “best multimedia reporting” category for its series “Deadly Fake: 30 Days Inside Fentanyl’s Grip on North Texas.” This series by Claire Ballor, Maggie Prosser, Sharon Grigsby, and Tom Fox produced 30 days’ worth of stories exposing the full scope and reality of the fentanyl epidemic gripping north Texas.
The National Journalism Center and the Dao Feng and Angela Foundation are grateful to everyone who submitted reporting for the second annual award and equally thankful for the professionalism and quality of the work submitted.
The Dao Prize is available to all U.S. media outlets and nominations are judged by an independent prize committee with voting conducted by secret ballot following a period of debate and discussion. Publications are encouraged to submit as many stories as they desire for consideration. Nominating instructions and additional information can be found at DaoPrize.org.
Since its founding by the renowned M. Stanton Evans in 1977, NJC has trained generations of aspiring journalists in the values of responsible, balanced, and accurate reporting. Through intensive 12-week sessions, NJC provides each class with paid internships in the nation’s capital that combine on-the-job training in newsrooms with weekly seminars featuring briefings with distinguished journalists, public policy experts, and lawmakers.
