WSJ wins FOI award from IRE

The Wall Street Journal won the Freedom of Information Award from the Investigative Reporters and Editors for its “Medicare Unmasked” story.

The judges wrote, “With a sustained, aggressive legal battle, staff at the Wall Street Journal pried open an opaque – and often times corrupt – pillar of the U.S. health system: Medicare billing. The resulting release of court-ordered data last year gave the nation an unprecedented look at why taxpayers are funding $60 billion in unnecessary Medicare payments each year. Their public release of the data also allowed hundreds of other media outlets and the public to examine Medicare billing data.”

The journalists who worked on it were John Carreyrou, Christopher Weaver, Christopher S. Stewart, Rob Barry, Anna Wilde Mathews, Tom McGinty, Michael Siconolfi, Janet Adamy, Martin Burch, Chris Canipe, Madeline Farbman, Jon Keegan, Palani Kumanan and Stuart A. Thompson.

See all of the winners here.