Sidney Awards
For more than fifty years, the Sidney Hillman Foundation has awarded the Hillman prizes, which are among the most prestigious honors in journalism. In 2009, the foundation inaugurated the Sidney, a monthly award for an outstanding piece of socially-conscious journalism. We are looking for investigative work that fosters social and economic justice. Make a nomination.
October, 2011
Spencer Soper
Morning Call
Morning Call reporter Spencer Soper won the October Sidney Award for “Inside Amazon’s Warehouse,” an exposé of brutal working conditions at Amazon.com’s warehouse in Lehigh Valley, PA.
September, 2011
Mary Bottari and Lisa Graves
The Nation
Mary Bottari and Lisa Graves of the Center for Media and Democracy and The Nation magazine have won the September Sidney Award for “ALEC:Exposed,” their joint expose of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an obscure but powerful conservative group that brings state legislators and corporations together to write laws.
August, 2011
Tom Gogola
New York Magazine
Tom Gogola won the August Sidney Award for his story “Bycatch 22,” published in New York magazine with support from the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.
Photo Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Tom Gogola and Esther Kaplan of the Investigative Fund of the Nation Insitute accept the August Sidney
June, 2011
Jose Antonio Vargas
The New York Times
Jose Antonio Vargas won the June Sidney award for "My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant," published in the New York Times.
Photo Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
Jose Antonio Vargas accepts the Sidney
May, 2011
Michael Sallah, Rob Barry, Carol Marbin Miller and Chuck Fadely
The Miami Herald
Miami Herald reporters Michael Sallah, Rob Barry, Carol Marbin Miller and Chuck Fadely won the May Sidney Award for “Neglected to Death,” their ongoing series that looks into the widespread neglect and abuse occurring at assisted-living facilities for the elderly and mentally ill in Florida.
April, 2011
Nathaniel Popper
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times reporter Nathaniel Popper won the April Sidney Award for his exposé of the anti-union practices of the supposedly union-friendly Ikea, the huge international furniture retailer.
March, 2011
David Kocieniewski
The New York Times
New York Times reporter David Kocieniewski won the March Sidney Award for his exposé of the General Electric Company. The Times reported that G.E. earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits in 2010, and paid nothing in United States taxes.
Photo Credit: Lindsay Beyerstein
David Kocieniewski accepts the Sidney
February, 2011
Greg Sargent
The Plum Line
Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent won the February Sidney Award for his extraordinary reporting about the Republican assault on public sector employees in Wisconsin. Sargent is the author of "The Plum Line" at washingtonpost.com.
Greg Sargent accepts the Sidney
January, 2011
The Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists won the January Sidney Award for its extraordinary contributions to the protection of journalists around the world, including its recent work in tracking the plight of journalists during the recent protests in Egypt. Since the beginning of the uprising, the Committee has documented fifty-two assaults on journalists and seventy-six detentions in that nation.
Joel Simon accepts the Sidney
The CPJ team accepts the Sidney
December, 2010
Arthur Delany and Ryan Grim
The Huffington Post
Arthur Delaney and Ryan Grim have won the December Sidney award for “The Poorhouse: Aunt Winnie, Glenn Beck, and the Politics of the New Deal,” their over six-thousand word investigation into the legacy of Social Security in the United States. Through historical anecdotes, analysis, statistics, and political coverage, Delany and Grim look at how the New Deal saved millions from the “poorhouse,” and the ways in which its programs are coming under attack today, even by some Democrats and President Obama.
Certificate designed by Edward Sorel
The Sidney is awarded monthly to a piece published in an American magazine, newspaper, on a news site, or a blog. Television and radio broadcasts by an American news outlet are also eligible, as are published photography series.
Deadlines are the last day of each month. The piece must have been published in the month preceding the deadline. In the case of magazines, please nominate according to the issue date on the publication, not when it first appeared.
Nominations are accepted for one's own work, or for someone else's.
The Foundation will announce a winner on the second Wednesday of each month. Recipients will be awarded $500, a bottle of union-made wine, and a certificate designed especially for the Sidney by New Yorker cartoonist, Edward Sorel.
If you wish to nominate yourself or a piece by anyone else, please click here for our nomination form.If you have any further questions about the nomination process, please send your inquiry to alex@hillmanfoundation.org