2025 Winner: Sarah Topol, The New York Times Magazine
“After Ivan left, Anna remained immobile on the floor of their hallway,” Sarah Topol writes in her long-form feature, “The Deserter.” “The pain came from inside a place she didn’t even know was empty, and she began to howl.” Across 35,000 words that spanned an entire special issue of The New York Times Magazine, Topol tells the story of Ivan, a combat officer in the Russian Army who defected, and his wife Anna. The five-part narrative reads like a novel, offering readers a uniquely intimate and singular deep dive into the Russian military service, its history and exigencies on soldiers fighting the Russia-Ukraine War today. As part of her reporting, Topol spoke with 18 deserters across four continents and eight countries. The result is a lyrically rich and deeply moving portrait of a man and a woman caught in the crosshairs of post-Soviet delusions. Her writing embodies Michael Kelly’s commitment to the “fearless pursuit and expression of truth.” “The Deserter” also won the George Polk Award’s Sydney H. Schanberg Prize, a National Magazine Award for feature writing, the Poynter Journalism Prize’s Deborah Howell Award for Writing Excellence, and the Overseas Press Club of America’s Ed Cunningham Award.
2024: Hannah Dreier, The New York Times
For several years now, unaccompanied migrant children have been entering the United States in record numbers. In “Alone and Exploited,” a sweeping and groundbreaking investigation published by The New York Times, Hannah Dreier exposed how these children “are part of a new economy of exploitation … ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country.” Dreier, a two-time Michael Kelly Award finalist, spoke with nearly 500 children working “across industries in every state”—from underage roofers in Tennessee to teenage overnight slaughterhouse cleaners in Virginia. Using court records and Census data, she built databases detailing workplace injuries, deaths on the job, and the government’s paltry record of child-labor trafficking prosecutions. To fully summarize her work’s impact would be impossible: among other things, Dreier’s tenacious reporting led to a White House crackdown, a host of congressional hearings, new investigations by federal agencies, stricter hiring standards across corporations, and tremendous media attention. The series also resulted in her second Pulitzer Prize. Dreier’s sheer doggedness in uncovering this scandal stands for the “fearless pursuit and expression of truth” that animated Michael Kelly throughout his life.
2023: Lynzy Billing, ProPublica
2022: Ian Urbina, The New Yorker and The Outlaw Ocean Project
2021: Nadja Drost, The California Sunday Magazine
2020: Azam Ahmed, The New York Times
2019: Maggie Michael, Nariman Ayman El-Mofty, and Maad al-Zikry, The Associated Press
Michael Kelly Award 