Murphy wins NPF award for trade reporting

Daniel Murphy

The National Press Foundation named Daniel Murphy of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism as the winner of the 2025 Hinrich Foundation Award for Distinguished Reporting on Trade for its series on China’s hidden forced labor and its impact on the global supply chain.

In “China’s Economy Runs on Uyghur Forced Labour,” Murphy traced this forced labor back to the supply chains of over 100 global brands, including McDonald’s, Sketchers, Tesla, and KFC.

In “Did Coerced Labour Build Your Car,” he explored the automotive industry’s reliance on forced labor despite tariffs. And in “The World Sanctioned Xinjiang Cotton. China Turned It Into Chicken Feed,” Murphy detailed how China circumvented international bans on its cotton production due to human rights violations, while still using forced minority labor.

“Murphy exposes an unwelcome engine fueling China as the factory of the world: coercive government programs employing Uyghurs and other minorities,” NPF judges said, praising Murphy’s diligent reporting methods, which required him to verify social media videos and records of factory visits in Xinjiang.

Murphy will accept the award at NPF’s 44th Annual Awards Dinner on March 12.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.