George Polk Awards

We're telling the story here and it has a certain flow.

During his career as a journalist, Barton Gelman has won three Pulitzer Prizes, two George Polk Awards, two Emmys and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

And then he had an encounter with a fireman that ultimately led him to leave journalism and become an activist.

He was interviewed about it on KCRW podcast Question Everything in an episode entitled The Journalist and the Firefighter.

He's also written for the Wall Street Journal.

He received the Robert Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism and the George Polk Award for Environmental Reporting after another revealing story about how coal companies deliberately and illegally exposed miners to toxic levels of coal dust.

Now, he's blowing the whistle on the pharmaceutical industry with his book, No More Tears, The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson.

Great title, because I remember the whole pitch of that J&J baby shampoo, and if you got it in your eyes, it wasn't going to burn, but it did burn.

He's written a series of stories about CIA officers killed in the line of duty, racism at the Virginia Military Institute, and abuse and sexual misconduct allegations within the Anglican Church in North America.

He is the recipient of numerous journalism honors, including the George Polk Award.

Please join me in welcoming these two wonderful journalists to the stage.

All right, thanks for showing up, and congratulations to Joby for his book.

She is the co-author of the bestseller, An Ugly Truth, Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination, which we'll discuss today.

She was part of a team that won the Gerald Loeb and George Polk Awards for their coverage of Facebook and were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Cecilia frequently appears on national television and radio as a commentator on technology and entertainment, and she's passionate about exposing the impacts and implications of technology on society, politics and culture.

So welcome, Cecilia.

She writes that in interviewing more than 100 education and tech industry figures for her book and reviewing hundreds of school, government, and corporate documents, quote, "It became clear that a handful of giants have used their money, their might, and their mammoth platforms to influence nearly every step of the education supply chain," unquote.

Singer was a member of a Times reporting team whose coverage of tech industry privacy violations won a George Polk Award in 2019 and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in national reporting.

Natasha Singer, welcome to Fresh Air.

You describe how tech companies have provided things for schools.

As of this recording, Theo is still an undergrad at Stanford University.

He spent much of his freshman year reporting on research fraud committed by the school's president, which led to him becoming the youngest-ever recipient of the George Polk Award for Investigative Journalism.

And now, just ahead of graduation, Theo is publishing a book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University.

The New York Times says, quote, "In every age, there is some place that epitomizes how power works.

Karen Attiah, for example, was the editor for Jamal Cas- Khashoggi when Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by the Saudi government.

For her relentless and brave commentary on Khashoggi's murder, Karen Attiah was given the prestigious George Polk Award.

Karen Attiah was a really high profile, really accomplished, really successful marquee talent at the Washington Post, which is why it was a shock when the Washington Post fired her last year in September, and they didn't even have the, choose your noun, to do it in person.

They did it by email.

Within months, he was investigating Stanford president Marc Tessier Levine over allegations surrounding years of scientific research.

The reporting helped lead to Tessier Levine's resignation and made Baker the youngest ever winner of the George Polk Award.

But perhaps the most interesting thing Baker discovered wasn't what was wrong with one university president.

It's what was happening all around him.