Amy Brittain, Reena Flores, and Bishop Sand from the Washington Post were nominated for their seven-part podcast, “Canary: The Washington Post Investigates.” The podcast explores the decisions of two women to share their accounts of sexual assault—and the spiraling consequences of those choices. ”Canary” reveals systemic problems within the criminal justice system that illustrate how difficult it is for survivors to feel any sense of justice.

Mississippi Free Press reporters Ashton Pittman and Donna Ladd were nominated for “‘The Fabric is Torn in Oxford’: UM Officials Decried Racism Publicly, Coddled it Privately.”  Their investigation revealed how wealthy donors influenced University of Mississippi officials to discourage diversity in an effort to preserve the “Ole Miss” of the past. The report, based on thousands of documents obtained from whistleblowers, kicked off what sources called “a witch hunt” as university officials attempted to identify the whistleblowers.

Margie Mason and Robin McDowell from the Associated Press—winners of the 2016 Payne Award—spent over two years producing “Fruits of Labor,” an investigation uncovering labor abuses in the palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia. The reporters interviewed more than 130 workers, going to great lengths to conceal their identities. They found child labor, human trafficking, slavery, and rape in the fields, and they traced connections to some of the world’s biggest companies.