2014 Gerald Loeb Award finalist

At the end of last week, UCLA's Anderson School of Management announced the finalists for the 2014 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, the most prestigious in that field.  I'm greatly honored to have been among their finalists for the second year running.

The nomination is for "Lobbyist in the Henhouse", my Portland Press Herald /Maine Sunday Telegram investigation on how Maine's Commissioner of Environmental Protection -- previously a lobbyist at the state's largest law-and-lobbying firm -- stifled the implementation and enforcement of laws and regulations she'd unsuccessfully fought against on behalf of the oil, chemical, drug, and real estate industries.

It's in the Small and Medium Newspapers category with worthy competitors from the Charleston Gazette, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Orange County Register, and Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

The story received considerable national attention when it came out -- particularly after Gov. Paul LePage issued a (short-lived) government-wide ban against speaking to my paper -- including the Associated Press, Columbia Journalism Review, and extended segments on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show" and WGBH's "Beat the Press." 

The winners will be chosen at an awards ceremony in New York City June 24th.

In 2013, I was pleased to have been nominated in the same category for my Maine Sunday Telegram investigation of how national for-profit digital education firms were being allowed to ghost write Maine's inaugural digital charter school policies with the help of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education. That story won a George Polk Award that year.