Girion of Reuters wins inaugural WERT Prize

The Knight-Bagehot Fellowships in Economics and Business at Columbia University named Lisa Girion of Reuters as the inaugural recipient of the WERT Prize, dedicated to honoring excellence in business reporting and writing by a woman journalist.

Girion’s winning work “Powder Keg” is a deeply reported investigation into Johnson and Johnson’s extensive knowledge of the existence of asbestos in its baby powder.

The finalists for the prize this year included Vivienne Walt of Fortune magazine for “Blood, Sweat and Batteries” and Megha Rajagopalan of Buzzfeed for “We Had To Stop Facebook: When Anti-Muslim Violence Goes Viral.”

The award will be presented on Oct. 16 at the 44th Knight-Bagehot Anniversary Dinner in New York.

“We are excited to honor and recognize the winner of this year’s WERT Prize,” said Raju Narisetti, director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowships, in a statement. “Lisa’s compelling business journalism in the public interest embodies the spirit of the award, and we hope her work, along with those of the two finalists, inspires more gender diversity in the field, a main goal for this new prize.”

Girion will receive $4,000 in the inaugural year, which also includes a one-time honorarium from the Muriel Siebert Foundation to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Women’s Economic Round Table.

Girion joined the Los Angeles bureau of Reuters as a top news editor in January 2016 after 16 years at the Los Angeles Times, where she also produced major multimedia stories on the intersection of government, commerce, health and welfare.