Winner: BusinessWeek, ‘The Subprime Wolves Are Back’
BusinessWeek was way ahead of the curve in December 2008. It was among the first media outlets to warn that some on Wall Street were exploiting the unprecedented government bailout of the banking industry. “The Subprime Wolves Are Back” exposed the staggering reality that some of the very banks that had gotten America into the subprime mortgage mess were taking advantage of new loan guarantees.
Reporters Chad Terhune and Robert Berner did the legwork and followed the money. They discovered that old subprime lenders had closed and reopened under new names, and the Federal Housing Administration itself had no clue with whom they were dealing. The story had immediate impact. The inspector general of the Housing and Urban Development cited the story as part of his motivation to investigate the matter, while Senate and congressional staff used the investigative piece as ammo in their own demands for better policing of the bailout.
BusinessWeek exposed wrongdoing and did the math. The reporters showed how a new round of unwise lending could leave the taxpayers with an unanticipated $100 billion in additional costs. But more to the point, BusinessWeek was among the first to blow the whistle on the bailout and demonstrate that greed and chicanery were not about to take a holiday on Wall Street.
Learn more about this winner.
Honorable Mentions
Marie Claire – “Project Pearl, The Bravest Class in Town”: Marie Claire deputy editor Abigail Pesta broke the compelling story of a Georgetown University college class that tracked down 15 of the 19 at-large suspects in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. It was an amazing tale of students solving a mystery that had eluded even government officials.
Marie Claire – “Love in the Time of Terror”: Paul Cruickshank’s story of a middle-class Belgian woman who had fallen in love with a young Islamic terrorist, and perhaps turned to terrorism herself, was an artful way to raise the larger question for many Americans: What makes a terrorist?
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