Awards & Conferences

The Nieman Foundation presents annual journalism awards to news organizations and journalists who have produced exceptional work in several categories. In honoring journalistic excellence, the foundation helps draw attention to innovative research, reporting and storytelling and share the lessons learned from groundbreaking reporting projects in print, on air and online.

Recent honorees include Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Nikolov, winner of the 2024 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism. Nieman Fellows in the Nieman class of 2024 recognized Nikolov for proving that independent watchdog journalism for the public good is possible even in a country at war, where media outlets operate under tight restrictions and where reporting on government corruption is particularly sensitive. The fellows said: “Nikolov’s high-profile corruption investigations into alleged graft in the Ukrainian military shine a light on the importance of watchdog reporting even in the most dire of circumstances. At great personal and reputational risk, Nikolov’s reporting has asked for accountability in the use of public funds, even while his country continues to fight Russia’s invasion.”

“Alone and Exploited,” by New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier is winner of the 2023 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism. Dreier’s hard-hitting investigation exposed the staggering scope of America’s hidden migrant child workforce and examined the policy failures and willful disregard by government administrators and corporations alike that allowed children to work in dangerous, sometimes life-threatening conditions in violation of child labor laws. Dreier found migrant children, many who had entered the country as unaccompanied minors, working in all 50 states, often making household products for companies including Fruit of the Loom, Ford, General Mills, J. Crew, and Ben & Jerry’s. They held jobs in factories, on construction sites and in slaughterhouses, sometimes working overnight shifts to earn money to send to their families back home and often while trying to go to school. The reporting swiftly led to important government and corporate reforms.

“Stalled Justice,” a Chicago Tribune investigation into the Cook County’s dysfunctional court system in Illinois reported by Joe Mahr and Megan Crepeau, is the winner of the 2023 Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism. The four-part investigation exposed the massive delays and logjams that for years have plagued the Cook County courts. The reporters revealed the toll the problems have taken on both victims of crime seeking justice and defendants in jail who have waited years for trials. Finalists are “Alone and Exploited,” a six-part series by New York Times reporter Hannah Dreier, that exposed the hidden world and stunning scope of migrant child labor in the U.S. and the many policy failures that have led to a shadow workforce across the country, and “The Mercy Workers,” a story by Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah, offers a rare look at a secretive profession of mitigation specialists who attempt to save prisoners from the death penalty.

Jerry Mitchell, director and co-founder of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting (MCIR), is winner of the 2024 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence, selected in recognition of his exemplary body of work and lifelong commitment to investigative journalism. For the past four decades, his stories have exposed injustices, corruption and abuse of power in the American South and his work has prompted prosecutions, important reforms of state agencies and firings of state board officials. Mitchell’s hard-hitting cold case investigations helped lead to convictions of Ku Klux Klan members many years after they committed some of the nation’s most notorious crimes.

Recipients of the 2024 Lukas Prize Project Awards include Dashka Slater, winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for “Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed,” Ned Blackhawk, winner of the Mark Lynton History Prize for “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History,” and the two J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award winners: Lorraine Boissoneault for “Body Weather: Notes on Illness in the Anthropocene” and Alice Driver for “The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company.” Kerry Howley is the Lukas Book Prize finalist for her book “Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State” and Gary J. Bass is the Lynton History Prize finalist is for “Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia.”

In addition to presenting annual journalism awards, the Nieman Foundation occasionally organizes conferences for journalists based around a central theme. In November 2019, the Nieman Foundation and the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard C-CHANGE) co-hosted “Covering Climate Change,” an intensive training workshop for journalists on covering climate change and related issues.

Together with University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Nieman made co-hosted the 2020 Campaign Journalism Conference for journalists covering the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The training took place in April 2019 in Chicago. In March 2018, Nieman hosted “Covering Nuclear Issues: A Workshop for Journalists,” a three-day conference that brought a diverse group of reporters, academics, researchers and practitioners together to help journalists deepen their reporting skills and expand their thinking around nuclear issues. And in March 2017, the Nieman Foundation presented another workshop for journalists, “Covering Housing.”

Nieman additionally organized and hosted “Power: Accountability and Abuse,” a two-day celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prizes in September 2016 that featured Pulitzer-winning performances and discussions centered on excellence in journalism and the arts.

The Nieman Foundation also hosts the Christopher J. Georges Conference on College Journalism for student journalists each spring.