ABC News' investigative unit and its leader, Brian Ross, have won the 2014 Goldsmith Prize for investigative reporting. Along with it comes a cash prize of $25,000 and the bragging rights of being the first commercial U.S. news operation to win the coveted prize, whose past winners have almost all been newspapers, the New York Times won three in a row at one point, although Frontline and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. shared one of those wins in 2004.
Ross and company won for their year-long investigation into the coal industry in concert with the Center for Public Integrity.
Sharing the prize, in addition to Ross, are ABC News’ Matt Mosk and Rhonda Schwartz, along with the Center's Chris Hamby, Ronnie Greene, Jim Morris and Chris Zubak-Skees.
Ross' investigative team was a finalist in 2001 and 2011. The prize, which is administered by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has been given out since 1993.
