Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg win Pulitzers

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News are among the Pulitzer Prize winners announced on Monday.

It’s the first Pulitzer for the Journal since Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. acquired it in 2007, and it’s the first Pulitzer ever for Bloomberg News, which launched in 1990.

The Journal won in the investigative reporting category  “Medicare Unmasked,” a “pioneering project that gave Americans unprecedented access to previously confidential data on the motivations and practices of their health care providers,” wrote the judges.

Bloomberg won in the explanatory reporting category. Zachary R. Mider of Bloomberg News won for a “painstaking, clear and entertaining explanation of how so many U.S. corporations dodge taxes and why lawmakers and regulators have a hard time stopping them,” said the judges.

In the “Tax Runaways” series of reports, Mider, working with managing editor Dan Golden, documented how U.S. corporations could lower their taxes and gain an edge on competitors simply by claiming a new legal address in a foreign country, even if their top executives remained in the U.S.

“This award is a testament first to Zach and his extraordinary journalism, but it is also a tribute to Matt Winkler who, along with Mike Bloomberg, built this news organization from scratch into what it is today,” said Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait in a statement. “Zach’s reporting is the kind of journalism that is the heart of what Bloomberg does to bring transparency to markets. This type of work is what drew me to Bloomberg and why we have retained and attracted some of the most talented journalists in the business.”

Eric Lipton of The New York Times also won in the investigative reporting category for reporting that showed how the influence of lobbyists can sway congressional leaders and state attorneys general, slanting justice toward the wealthy and connected.

In addition, Boston Globe editorial writer Kathleen Kingsbury won in the editorial writing category for taking readers on “a tour of restaurant workers’ bank accounts to expose the real price of inexpensive menu items and the human costs of income inequality.”

Joan Biskupic, Janet Roberts and John Shiffman of Reuters were finalists in the explanatory reporting category for using data analysis to reveal how an elite cadre of lawyers enjoy extraordinary access to the U.S. Supreme Court, raising doubts about the ideal of equal justice.

There were two Pulitzers in 2014 for a business and financial topic, and two finalists. In 2013, there were three Pulitzer Prizes handed out for business and financial journalism, and three finalists in business and financial journalism.