Sarasota Herald-Tribune wins National Journalism Award biz reporting prize

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune received the William Brewster Styles Award for business and economics reporting, which comes with $10,000, on Friday from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

The Florida paper was picked because of its coverage of $10 billion worth of potential mortgage fraud in the state. The business reporters who worked on the stories were Michael Braga, Chris Davis and Matthew Doig.

Finalists in the category were Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times; and Ben Poston and John Schmid, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for “Patents Pending.”

In addition, Thomas Frank of USA Today receives $10,000 and the Raymond Clapper Award for Washington Reporting for “Under the Radar,” an investigation of a little-known Federal Aviation Administration tax on airline passengers’ tickets that revealed how billions of dollars in proceeds are used to fund the world’s largest private aviation network.

Also, UNC-Chapel Hill business journalism professor Chris Roush received $10,000 and the Charles E. Scripps Award for Journalism Education as journalism teacher of the year. The award is given in cooperation with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Read about all of the winners here.