In 2014, a landmark Center investigation detailing controversial denials of black lung benefits to coal miners — “Breathless and Burdened: Dying from Black Lung, Buried by Law and Medicine” — won in the category of investigative reporting. The year-long investigation illuminated how doctors and lawyers working at the behest of the coal industry helped defeat benefit claims of coal miners who were sick and dying of black lung disease.
The Pulitzer is the latest in a slew of awards honoring the Panama Papers project.
Others include the George Polk Award for financial journalism, two prizes in the 2016 Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards the O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism from the American Society of News Editors and a recognition by the White House Correspondents’ Association with an honorable mention.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was a project of the Center for Public Integrity when the Panama Papers series was published last year. It has since spun off into a separate entity.
The Gold Medal for Public Service went to the New York Daily News and ProPublica. Other winners included the East Bay Times, the Charleston Gazette Mail, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Founded in 1989, the Center for Public Integrity is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit news organizations in the country. Its newsroom is comprised of reporters, editors and computer-aided reporting experts who dig deep and deliver national and international investigative journalism of enduring significance.