New York Financial Writers' Association Names 2020 Impact Award Recipients

NEW YORK, Aug. 19, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The New York Financial Writers' Association is pleased to name Dan McCrum, Stefania Palma, Olaf Storbeck and John Reed of the Financial Times the 2020 winners of the Impact Award for their series of reports that exposed a massive fraud at Wirecard.

Wirecard was once one of Europe's top fintech stocks, with a market value of $28 billion at its peak. In June, the payment processing company collapsed into insolvency, just days after revealing a $2.1 billion accounting hole at the core of its business. The disclosure meant that much of its business was nothing more than fiction.

None of these revelations should have surprised FT readers, who for years have been given inside access into Wirecard's questionable business practices by McCrum and his colleagues (see a timeline of their reporting here). The Financial Times and its reporters persevered in the face of fierce opposition from Wirecard executives and disregard by auditors, financial regulators and investors that finally ended in June when Wirecard acknowledged the fraud.

The Impact Award Committee also recognized two finalists:

Finalist: "UVA Has Ruined Us" by Jay Hancock and Elizabeth Lucas of Kaiser Health News

An excellent example of a story that had immediate, measurable impact on thousands of lives affected by the University of Virginia Health System's aggressive billing and collections practices. Hancock's and Lucas's reporting prompted UVA to change debt collection practices that damaged so many persons, correcting a wrong that violated one of the medical profession's central tenets: first, do no harm.

Finalist: Uber Investigation by Sara Ashley O'Brien, Nelli Black, Curt Devine and Drew Griffin of CNN

But for CNN's dogged reporting, the public would have no idea how often users of the popular ride-hailing app Uber have reported incidents of sexual assault – 5,981 times, to be exact, in 2017 and 2018 alone. After CNN's expose, the company grudgingly disclosed the figures and altered its practice of silencing victims with forced arbitration clauses and non-disclosure agreements.

About the Impact Award

Established by NYFWA in 2019, the Impact Award for Distinguished Financial Journalism honors a story or body of work by business journalists whose reporting spurred impact, irrespective of when the stories were published.

About the New York Financial Writers' Association

Founded in 1938, NYFWA is the oldest organization of its kind devoted to advancing business and financial journalism. For more information, visit www.nyfwa.org or email [email protected].

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SOURCE New York Financial Writers' Association