STAT investigative series ‘Denied by AI’ wins major journalism prizes

Dear Readers,

Please bear with me as I brag about two of STAT’s most accomplished (and humble) reporters: Casey Ross and Bob Herman.

This week they won the Batten Medal, one of the most prestigious awards in American journalism, for their series revealing an explicit strategy by the nation’s largest health insurer to use a flawed computer algorithm to increase profits in its Medicare Advantage business at the expense of vulnerable older Americans.

Their stories about UnitedHealth also won the NIHCM Award for investigative and general reporting, an extraordinarily competitive prize in health care journalism, as well as the top investigative prize of the National Headliners Awards. It was a finalist for several other top journalism prizes, including the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the 2023 Investigative Reporters & Editors Awards, the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing “Best in Business” Awards, and the AHCJ Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.

This recognition is important to us because it shows that, though we are a relatively young media company, we are operating at the very highest levels of our profession. From the start, our mission has been to deliver trusted and authoritative coverage of health and medicine that pulls no punches. Some of those we cover may be unhappy about our stories, but we hope they respect our fair and meticulous reporting.

As the judges for the Batten Prize wrote of the Ross/Herman series, which had immediate and far-reaching impacts in Congress, federal agencies, courts, and even inside UnitedHealth, “STAT made a difference in the lives of patients across the nation by having the courage to pursue such a difficult story and the compassion to help those who were so callously treated by the nation’s largest health insurer.”

Such journalism is tremendously costly and difficult to produce. Ross and Herman worked on this project for most of last year. So I’d be grateful if you’d consider a subscription to STAT+ to support our work. Most of our biggest exclusives are published behind our paywall, as was the UnitedHealth series. And there are many more impactful stories coming very soon.

We are offering a special 25% off discount to readers of this letter; just use the promotion code STAT25 when subscribing. Beyond that discount, we also offer academic and nonprofit rates, as well as group subscriptions and licenses.

Another reason to support STAT’s journalism is unfolding right now. In recent days, STAT has been leading the way with authoritative stories about the H5N1 bird flu outbreak in dairy cows in the United States. Our lead reporter on this is Helen Branswell, who is the most respected infectious disease reporter anywhere. When the pandemic hit, tens of millions of readers turned to Helen, and STAT’s deeply sourced team, for our authoritative coverage of Covid and vaccine development. You can count on us once again to cover bird flu and the possible fallout in a meticulous, responsible, and measured way.

Thank you for reading STAT, and please reach out to me with any feedback. I’m at [email protected].