The Miami New Times: Evidence Florida Newspapers Are Still Making a Difference

The Miami New Times is among six finalists for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, according to an announcement Thursday by the prize's sponsor, the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvards Kennedy School of Government.

The Investigative Reporting Prize, which carries a $10,000 award for finalists and $25,000 for the winner, is intended to recognize and encourage journalism that promotes more effective and ethical conduct of government, the making of public policy, or the practice of politics by disclosing excessive secrecy, impropriety and mismanagement, or instances of particularly commendable government performance.

The Miami New Times' entry is Tim Elfink's Biogenesis: Steroids, Baseball and an Industry Gone Wrong, a year-long series on doping and so-called anti-aging clinics. It resulted directly in the suspension of 13 players, including a record 162 games for Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. It was the largest round of such discipline in the history of American sport.

The series also revealed systemic failure in Florida that allowed felons to own clinics like Biogenesis employing physicians with long disciplinary histories to sell federally restricted drugs such as steroids, testosterone and human growth hormone. The New Times probe forced baseball to confront its doping problems and the state to move toward policing its clinics.

The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony March 5 at the Kennedy School.