A-Mark Prize for Reporting on Misinformation and Disinformation (Awarding $15,000 in Cash Prizes)

06-23-2024, 66th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards held at the Millenium Hotel Biltmore Downtown Los Angeles.

The rise of digital media has unleashed a flood of inaccurate, misleading or outright fabricated information across all news platforms. In recent years, we’ve seen the spread of lies about the 2020 and 2024 elections, falsehoods perpetrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change denialism and conspiracy theories that single out specific individuals or minority groups with baseless and damaging claims.

A critical antidote to this problem is serious, persistent and fearless journalism that exposes and counters untruths and the people and organizations that perpetuate them. The Santa Monica-based, nonpartisan A-Mark Foundation several years ago joined with the Los Angeles Press Club to award the A-Mark Prize for Reporting on Misinformation and Disinformation.

The goal of this award is to facilitate stories that expose the larger problem of fake news, explore specific instances of misinformation and disinformation in social and news media and hold perpetrators of misleading news accountable. The work can take on a specific instance of media manipulation, examining its perpetrators and its impact. Or it can explore solutions to the problem or individuals or groups active in either perpetrating or solving it.

To honor, highlight, publicize, and inspire outstanding journalism and investigative reporting, the A-Mark Prize for Reporting on Misinformation and Disinformation (“Prize”) is hereby established.

Submission Guidelines

The Prize will be open to entries with a California connection. A “California connection” means one or more of the following:

  • The winning reporter is based in California.
  • The newspaper or media outlet that published the winning work is based in California.
  • The work covers California.

In other words, a reporter who writes for the New York Times but is based in Los Angeles would qualify under this criteria. As would a reporter who lives in Oregon but writes for the Los Angeles Times. A story that investigates the Los Angeles City Council published in the Washington Post would also qualify based on this criteria.

Prize Information

First place: $5,000 for the reporter + $2,500 for the publishing outlet.
Second place: $3,000 for the reporter + $1,500 for the publishing outlet.
Third place: $2,000 for the reporter + $1,000 for the publishing outlet.

If the winning entries feature multiple reporters and/or publishing outlets, the prize amounts listed will be split evenly among them.

Recipients need not be a member of the L.A. Press Club. Applicants should be writers, photojournalists, videographers, TV journalists, radio journalists or podcasters. Proposals can include reported opinion columns.

Stories can be told in any number of formats, including shorter pieces; longer take-outs; investigative series; mobile-friendly content; TV news segments or public affairs programming; radio pieces and podcasts; data visualizations and interactive maps.

No personnel or board members of A-Mark Foundation (or the immediate family thereof) shall be permitted to compete for a prize or be involved in judging entries.

The deadline to apply is May 1, 2025.

A-Mark Prize 2024 Winners

First Place: Albert Serna Jr., TJ L’Heureux, Adrienne Washington, Anisa Shabir, Isaac Stone Simonelli, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, “In the Sheriff We Trust” (Links: 1, 2, 3)

Judges’ comment: This package is a public service, using thoroughly reported stories and a strong video to expose a growing group of sheriffs nationwide - who are paid by taxpayers - interpreting and enforcing the law as it suits them. The reporting led to changes in taxpayer-funded sheriff training programs and spotlights a gross abuse of power and the spreading of misinformation by those the public trusts to uphold the law. This is excellent journalism. It’s not “traditional” mis/disinfo reporting. What makes it so good/important as reporting goes is that it exposes the methods and mechanisms used by people trying to give extremist views an air of legitimacy by sneaking it into government functions.

Comment on category as a whole: Judges were impressed by a variety of approaches that included insightful spot reporting and deep investigative work. Some top entries pushed the boundary of “traditional” misinformation and disinformation reporting, digging into related methods used to lend authority to false claims or suppress true narratives.”

Second Place: Greg Mitchell, Lyn Goldfarb and Michelle Merker, KCET, “Memorial Day Massacre: Workers Die, Film Buried”

Third Place: Alexandra Barinka, Bloomberg News, “TikTok Struggles to Take Down Deepfake Videos of Hamas’ Victims”

A-Mark Prize 2023 Winners

First Place: Miranda Green, David Folkenflik and Mario Ariza, Floodlight, NPR, “Power Play: How Utilities Paid a Consulting Group that Infiltrated Local News Media, Attacked Clean Energy Foes and Intimidated Public Officials” (Link)

Judges’ comment: A prime example of what makes the A-Mark Prize so important, this team of reporters painstakingly traced the financial connections, through documents and interviews, between a consulting firm and six news sites in Alabama and Florida to show how money influenced coverage to the detriment of Alabama electric utility customers. The smear campaign against critics of the Alabama utility was aimed at thwarting hearings into why consumers there are paying some of the highest rates in the nation. A bright shining light on misinformation leading to apparent corruption by those who are supposed to serve the public interest.

Second Place: James Rainey, Los Angeles Times, “His Website Skewers Stockton Politicians and Agencies. Then One Gave Him A Cushy Job”

Third Place: Sam Kestenbaum, Rolling Stone, “Who is Clay Clark? Inside the Misinformation Roadshow Barnstorming America”