| | 1948 Nat S. Finney of Minneapolis Tribune |
| | For his stories on the plan of the Truman administration to impose secrecy about the ordinary affairs of federal civilian agencies in peacetime. |
| | 1948 Bert Andrews of New York Herald Tribune |
| | For his articles on "A State Department Security Case" published in I947. |
| | 1949 C. P. Trussell of New York Times |
| | For consistent excellence covering the national scene from Washington. |
| | 1950 Edwin O. Guthman of Seattle Times |
| | For his series on the clearing of Communist charges of Professor Melvin Rader, who had been accused of attending a secret Communist school. |
| | 1951 (No Award) |
| | |
| | 1952 Anthony Leviero of New York Times |
| | For his exclusive article of April 21, 1951, disclosing the record of conversations between President Truman and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur at Wake Island in their conference of October, 1950. |
| | 1953 Don Whitehead of Associated Press |
| | For his article called "The Great Deception," dealing with the intricate arrangements by which the safety of President-elect Eisenhower was guarded enroute from Morningside Heights in New York to Korea. |
| | 1954 Richard Wilson of Des Moines Register & Tribune |
| | For his exclusive publication of the FBI Report to the White House in the Harry Dexter White case before it was laid before the Senate by J. Edgar Hoover. |
| | 1955 Anthony Lewis of Washington Daily News |
| | For publishing a series of articles which were adjudged directly responsible for clearing Abraham Chasanow, an employee of the U.S. Navy Department, and bringing about his restoration to duty with an acknowledgment by the Navy Department that it had committed a grave injustice in dismissing him as a security risk. Mr. Lewis received the full support of his newspaper in championing an American citizen, without adequate funds or resources for his defense, against an unjust act by a government department. This is in the best tradition of American journalism. |
| | 1956 Charles L. Bartlett of Chattanooga Times |
| | For his original disclosures that led to the resignation of Harold E. Talbott as Secretary of the Air Force. |
| | 1957 James Reston of New York Times |
| | For his distinguished national correspondence, including both news dispatches and interpretive reporting, an outstanding example of which was his five-part analysis of the effect of President Eisenhower's illness on the functioning of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. |
| | 1958 Relman Morin of Associated Press |
| | For his dramatic and incisive eyewitness report of mob violence on September 23, 1957, during the integration crisis at the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. |
| | 1958 Clark Mollenhoff of Des Moines Register and Tribune |
| | For his persistent inquiry into labor racketeering, which included investigatory reporting of wide significance. |
| | 1959 Howard Van Smith of Miami (Fla.) News |
| | For a series of articles that focused public notice on deplorable conditions in a Florida migrant labor camp, resulted in the provision of generous assistance for the 4,000 stranded workers in the camp, and thereby called attention to the national problem presented by 1,500,000 migratory laborers. |
| | 1960 Vance Trimble of Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance |
| | For a series of articles exposing the extent of nepotism in the Congress of the United States. |
| | 1961 Edward R. Cony of Wall Street Journal |
| | For his analysis of a timber transaction which drew the attention of the public to the problems of business ethics. |
| | 1962 Nathan G. Caldwell and Gene S. Graham of Nashville Tennessean |
| | For their exclusive disclosure and six years of detailed reporting, under great difficulties, of the undercover cooperation between management interests in the coal industry and the United Mine Workers. |
| | 1963 Anthony Lewis of New York Times |
| | For his distinguished reporting of the proceedings of the United States Supreme Court during the year, with particular emphasis on the coverage of the decision in the reapportionment case and its consequences in many of the States of the Union. |
| | 1964 Merriman Smith of United Press International |
| | For his outstanding coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. |
| | 1965 Louis M. Kohlmeier of Wall Street Journal |
| | For his enterprise in reporting the growth of the fortune of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his family. |
| | 1966 Haynes Johnson of Washington Evening Star |
| | For his distinguished coverage of the civil rights conflict centered about Selma, Ala., and particularly his reporting of its aftermath. |
| | 1967 Stanley Penn and Monroe Karmin of Wall Street Journal |
| | For their investigative reporting of the connection between American crime and gambling in the Bahamas. (The prize is shared between the two reporters |
| | 1968 Howard James of Christian Science Monitor |
| | For his series of articles, "Crisis in the Courts." |
| | 1968 Nathan K. (Nick) Kotz of Des Moines Register and Minneapolis Tribune |
| | For his reporting of unsanitary conditions in many meat packing plants, which helped insure the passage of the Federal Wholesome Meat Act of 1967. |
| | 1969 Robert Cahn of Christian Science Monitor |
| | For his inquiry into the future of our national parks and the methods that may help to preserve them. |
| | 1970 William J. Eaton of Chicago Daily News |
| | For disclosures about the background of Judge Clement F. Haynesworth Jr., in connection with his nomination for the United States Supreme Court. |
| | 1971 Lucinda Franks and Thomas Powers of United Press International |
| | For their documentary on the life and death of a 28-year-old revolutionary Diana Oughton: "The Making of a Terrorist." |
| | 1972 Jack Anderson of syndicated columnist |
| | For his reporting of American policy decision-making during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. |
| | 1973 Robert Boyd and Clark Hoyt of Knight Newspapers |
| | For their disclosure of Senator Thomas Eagleton's history of psychiatric therapy, resulting in his withdrawal as the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee in 1972 |
| | 1974 James R. Polk of Washington Star-News |
| | For his disclosure of alleged irregularities in the financing of the campaign to re-elect President Nixon in 1972. |
| | 1974 Jack White of Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin |
| | For his initiative in exclusively disclosing President Nixon's Federal income tax payments in 1970 and 1971. |
| | 1975 Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele of Philadelphia Inquirer |
| | For their series "Auditing the Internal Revenue Service," which exposed the unequal application of Federal tax laws. |
| | 1976 James Risser of Des Moines Register |
| | For disclosing large-scale corruption in the American grain exporting trade. |
| | 1977 Walter Mears of Associated Press |
| | For his coverage of the 1976 Presidential campaign. |
| | 1978 Gaylord D. Shaw of Los Angeles Times |
| | For a series on unsafe structural conditions at the nation's major dams. |
| | 1979 James Risser of Des Moines Register |
| | For a series on farming damage to the environment. |
| | 1980 Bette Swenson Orsini and Charles Stafford of St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times |
| | For their investigation of the Church of Scientology. |
| | 1981 John M. Crewdson of New York Times |
| | For his coverage of illegal aliens and immigration. |
| | 1982 Rick Atkinson of Kansas City Times |
| | For the uniform excellence of his reporting and writing on stories of national import. |
| | 1983 Boston Globe of Boston Globe |
| | For its balanced and informative special report on the nuclear arms race. |
| | 1984 John Noble Wilford of New York Times |
| | For reporting on a wide variety of scientific topics of national import. |
| | 1985 Thomas J. Knudson of Des Moines Register |
| | For his series of articles that examined the dangers of farming as an occupation. |
| | 1986 Arthur Howe of Philadelphia Inquirer |
| | For his enterprising and indefatigable reporting on massive deficiencies in IRS processing of tax returns-reporting that eventually inspired major changes in IRS procedures and prompted the agency to make a public apology to U.S. taxpayers. |
| | 1986 Craig Flournoy and George Rodrigue of Dallas Morning News |
| | For their investigation into subsidized housing in East Texas, which uncovered patterns of racial discrimination and segregation in public housing across the United States and led to significant reforms. |
| | 1987 Staff of Miami Herald |
| | For its exclusive reporting and persistent coverage of the U.S.-Iran-Contra connection. |
| | 1987 Staff of New York Times |
| | For coverage of the aftermath of the Challenger explosion, which included stories that identified serious flaws in the shuttle's design and in the administration of America's space program. |
| | 1988 Tim Weiner of Philadelphia Inquirer |
| | For his series of reports on a secret Pentagon budget used by the government to sponsor defense research and an arms buildup. |
| | 1989 Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele of Philadelphia Inquirer |
| | For their 15-month investigation of "rifle shot" provisions in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a series that aroused such widespread public indignation that Congress subsequently rejected proposals giving special tax breaks to many politically connected individuals and businesses. |
| | 1990 Ross Anderson, Bill Dietrich, Mary Ann Gwinn and Eric Nalder of Seattle Times |
| | For coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its aftermath. |
| | 1991 Marjie Lundstrom and Rochelle Sharpe of Gannett News Service |
| | For reporting that disclosed hundreds of child abuse-related deaths go undetected each year as a result of errors by medical examiners. |
| | 1992 Jeff Taylor and Mike McGraw of Kansas City Star |
| | For their critical examination of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. |
| | 1993 David Maraniss of Washington Post |
| | For his revealing articles on the life and political record of candidate Bill Clinton. |
| | 1994 Eileen Welsome of Albuquerque Tribune |
| | For stories that related the experiences of Americans who had been used unknowingly in government radiation experiments nearly 50 years ago. |
| | 1995 Tony Horwitz of Wall Street Journal |
| | For stories about working conditions in low-wage America. |
| | 1996 Alix M. Freedman of Wall Street Journal |
| | For her coverage of the tobacco industry, including a report that exposed how ammonia additives heighten nicotine potency. |
| | 1997 Staff of Wall Street Journal |
| | For its coverage of the struggle against AIDS in all of its aspects, the human, the scientific and the business, in light of promising treatments for the disease. |
| | 1998 Russell Carollo and Jeff Nesmith of Dayton Daily News |
| | For their reporting that disclosed dangerous flaws and mismanagement in the military health care system and prompted reforms. |
| | 1999 Staff of New York Times, and notably Jeff Gerth |
| | For a series of articles that disclosed the corporate sale of American technology to China, with U.S. government approval despite national security risks, prompting investigations and significant changes in policy. |
| | 2000 Staff of Wall Street Journal |
| | For its revealing stories that question U.S. defense spending and military deployment in the post-Cold War era and offer alternatives for the future. |
| | 2001 New York Times Staff |
| | For its compelling and memorable series exploring racial experiences and attitudes across contemporary America. |
| | 2002 Washington Post Staff |
| | For its comprehensive coverage of America's war on terrorism, which regularly brought forth new information together with skilled analysis of unfolding developments. |
| | 2003 Alan Miller and Kevin Sack of Los Angeles Times |
| | For their revelatory and moving examination of a military aircraft, nicknamed "The Widow Maker," that was linked to the deaths of 45 pilots. (Moved by the Board from the Investigative Reporting category to the National Reporting category, where it was also entered.) |
| | 2004 Staff of Los Angeles Times |
| | For its engrossing examination of the tactics that have made Wal-Mart the largest company in the world with cascading effects across American towns and developing countries. |
| | 2005 Walt Bogdanich of New York Times |
| | For his heavily documented stories about the corporate cover-up of responsibility for fatal accidents at railway crossings. |
| | 2006 James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of New York Times |
| | For their carefully sourced stories on secret domestic eavesdropping that stirred a national debate on the boundary line between fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberty. |
| | 2006 Staffs of San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service, with notable work by Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer. |
| | For their disclosure of bribe-taking that sent former Rep. Randy Cunningham to prison in disgrace. |