The nonprofit VTDigger, an online publication covering Vermont business and government and edited by Anne Galloway, is being recognized for its investigative reporting by the American Society of Business Publication Editors.
In 2014, the Montpelier-based VTDigger uncovered possible financial improprieties by one of Vermont’s most prominent business people, Bill Stenger, and his partners in an investment firm developing Jay Peak, a winter recreation resort near the Canadian border. As a result of several years of reporting by the publication, led by Founding Editor Galloway, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation and later brought charges against Stenger and his partners.
“This is the kind of consequential reporting that business publications aspire to,” ASBPE President Dominick Yanchunas says. “Today more than ever, we need the kind of business reporting that VTDigger has been doing to hold business and government leaders accountable.”
Galloway launched VTDigger in 2009 and started reporting on Stenger’s business in 2012. The publication has since reported hundreds of stories on the company. The SEC brought charges against the partners in 2016 for misusing hundreds of millions of dollars provided to them by investors.
ASBPE was founded in 1964 to represent editors and other professionals of business and trade publications in the United States. The organization launched its Journalism That Matters award in 2008 to recognize business reporting that leads to concrete change, in business or government. The first award was given to Homeland Security Today for reporting that led to a reversal by the National Football League to allow recruitment ads for U.S. border patrol agents during the league’s 2008 championship game. In 2011, the award was given to The Spine Journal for reporting that changed how academic journals publish and disclose industry sponsored research. This year’s recognition of Galloway and VTDigger will be the organization’s third award under its Journalism that Matters program.
Galloway will receive the Journalism That Matters Award at ASBPE’s national conference this spring. The conference will be at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., May 10-11. The conference keynote speaker will be Charles Lewis, founder of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the organization behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2016 publication of the “Panama Papers” and last year’s “Paradise Papers.” Both of these reports revealed the widespread use of undisclosed bank accounts by thousands of wealthy individuals to circumvent banking regulators.
More on the award: https://asbpe.org/azbee-awards
More on the conference is at https://asbpe.org/blog/2018/01/30/asbpes-2018-b2b-media-success-conference-and-azbee-awards-of-excellence-banquet/