Entries for Barlett & Steele Awards sought

Entries for the inaugural Barlett & Steele Awards for Investigative Business Journalism are now being accepted, the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University announced today.

Named for the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative business journalist team of Don Barlett and Jim Steele, they include a first-place prize of $5,000 and runner-up prize of $2,000. They will be awarded annually.

Entries must have appeared between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007. Submission deadline is Aug. 1, 2007. Visit http://www.businessjournalism.org/barlettsteeleawards/ to download the rules and guidelines and access the entry form.

Winners of the inaugural awards will be announced in fall 2007.

“Don Barlett and I are deeply honored that the Reynolds Center has established this award in our name,” said Jim Steele. “But, more importantly, we are gratified that it is providing leadership to recognize and encourage in-depth reporting of business.”

Barlett and Steele, who won two Pulitzers with The Philadelphia Inquirer and two National Magazine Awards at Time, have worked together more than three decades. They are contributing editors to Vanity Fair.

“We’d like to see journalists who keep the bigger picture in mind,” Steele said. “Someone who brings an understanding of complex issues that have not been properly explained. Don and I have an informal motto: Tell the reader something they don’t know about. It sounds simple. Yet a lot of journalism is a rehash of what people already know.”

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