Montana Public Radio has won a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting in Corin Cates-Carney's story about Montana lobbyist spending reports.
The Murrow Awards are the embodiment of the values and principles set forth by Edward R. Murrow, a journalism pioneer who set the standards for the highest quality broadcast journalism. They're among the most respected awards in journalism.
In the past, Montana’s political practices watchdog has translated the paper forms lobbyists are required to file into a single electronic document which the public or the press could then search and sort. But last year, Montana's commissioner of political practices chose not to do that.
That meant the only way to get a big-picture look at how much was being spent to lobby state lawmakers was to go online and view all the individual scanned reports.
MTPR's Corin Cates-Carney did exactly that, digging through hundreds of reports to figure out how much money lobbyists reported spending to influence lawmakers during the 2019 legislative session. The story also explains why this data isn't easily accessible by the public and what obstacles stand in the way of that transparency.
We're thrilled to be recognized for this prestigious award and proud of the work done by our (then) Capitol Reporter Corin Cates-Carney and editor Eric Whitney.
Cates-Carney has since been hired as MTPR's news director, and Whitney is now the NPR Bureau Chief for the Rocky Mountains & Great Plains.