Cox Media Group Investigative Reporting Wins Another National Honor

Cox Media Group Investigative Reporting Wins Another National Honor

'Social Security's Secret' Earns National Press Foundation Award

ATLANTA - December 6, 2024 - Cox Media Group's Investigative Reporting team and KFF Health News won the 2024 National Press Foundation's Feddie Reporting Award. This annual award recognizes outstanding reporting about the impact of federal laws and regulations on local communities.

CMG and KFF Health News earned this national recognition for "Social Security's Secret," a 60-minute news special based on its investigative series, "Overpayment Outrage." The special showed how a dozen reporters from across all of CMG's local television stations and KFF Health News worked together to expose the real-world impacts of Social Security Administration (SSA) overpayment clawbacks. It featured personal stories of more than three dozen people to highlight how burdensome the SSA's clawbacks had become for thousands of benefit recipients. "Social Security's Secret" aired on in all of CMG's TV markets and on its streaming platforms.

"We wake up every day with the goal of positively impacting our viewers and the communities we serve," said Marian Pittman, CMG's President of Content & Innovation. "It's extra gratifying when those efforts are awarded, especially from an organization like the National Press Foundation. This recognition is a testament to the incredible commitment and dogged determination of our investigative teams, which relentlessly pursue stories that matter to our communities and help protect consumers."

As a result of CMG's reporting, the Social Security Administration announced sweeping policy changes to stop what SSA Commissioner Martin O'Malley called the "clawback cruelty" of withholding 100 percent of people's benefits to recoup overpayments. Instead, the agency will now default to a 10 percent withholding for those who don't respond to notices. O'Malley also vowed to make overpayment notices easier to understand and to shift the burden of proof from the beneficiaries to the agency.

"Sometimes it takes a crisis. Sometimes it takes an organization like yours lifting up a shortcoming for us to look at our data differently," said Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley during a March interview with CMG. "We couldn't allow this injustice to continue."

The agency has since restored benefits for many of the people featured in CMG and KFF's stories, plus many others.

"It's our privilege and responsibility to shed light on problems like these, which affect so many people in our local communities," said Jodie Fleischer, CMG's managing editor for investigative content and collaborations. "When our reporting encourages those in power to take action to improve the lives of millions of people, it just reaffirms our mission to protect consumers and positively impact the people and communities we serve."

CMG's "Overpayment Outrage" was honored as a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Public Service and has been awarded with:

· The inaugural Goldsmith Awards Special Citation for Government Reporting

· National Headliner Award for Public Service (Broadcast or Cable TV)

· SABEW (Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing) Best in Business Award

· AHCJ Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism

· Barlett & Steele Gold Prize (for Regional/Local Reporting)

· Three D.C. Dateline Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for Television Investigative Journalism, Online Investigative Journalism, and the Robert D.G. Lewis Watchdog Award.