The McGraw Fellows
2016
Seven veteran journalists won grants of up to $15,000 as the 2016 recipients of the McGraw Fellowships for Business Journalism.
The winning projects will explore a variety of issues, from the inadequate regulation of the generic drug industry and the ever-larger influence of Silicon Valley startup culture on American life, to problems in the nation’s troubled water infrastructure system.
The McGraw Fellowships, an initiative of the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Center for Business Journalism at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, were created in 2014 to support ambitious coverage of critical issues related to the U.S. economy and business.
The Fellowships — awarded twice a year — enable accomplished journalists to do the deep reporting needed to produce a distinguished investigative or enterprise business story. The first McGraw Fellows were named in July 2014; altogether, 17 McGraw Fellowships have been awarded to date.
Nearly 100 journalists working in more than half-a-dozen countries applied for the latest round — our largest pool ever. Each McGraw Fellow receives a stipend of up to $5,000 a month for three months, along with editorial guidance and assistance in placing stories with media outlets.
The McGraw Fellows for 2016 were:
Elizabeth Douglass
A correspondent for
A previous finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award, her stories have led to appearances on The Rachel Maddow Show, Public Radio International, and Chicago public radio,
Katherine Eban
A New York-based investigative reporter, Eban used the Fellowship to complete research for a book about the generic drug revolution, which was published by Harper Collins (Ecco imprint). The book explores the 21st century shift to generic drugs and to overseas manufacturing, the challenges of regulating in a globalized world, and the resulting geopolitical and public-health consequences.
Eban’s previous articles on pharmaceutical counterfeiting, gun trafficking, and coercive interrogations by the CIA have won international attention and numerous awards. She is currently a Fortune magazine contributor and a Carnegie fellow, and has also written for Vanity Fair, Self, The Nation and other publications. She formerly worked as a staff writer for the New York Times and the New York Observer.
See Katherine’s Fellowship Stories
Mya Frazier
A freelance journalist based in Columbus, Ohio, Frazier’s work explores the intersection of business, technology and religion. Her stories have appeared in Harper’s, NewYorker.com, Slate, The New Republic, Columbus Monthly, The Atlantic and Aeon. She is a former staff writer for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Advertising Age and American City Business Journals. Frazier‘s Fellowship project looked at the increasing influence of Silicon Valley startup culture on religious and business life in the U.S. Her story, “What Would Jesus Disrupt?” ran in Bloomberg Businessweek in April, 2017.
Kristin Hussey and Christopher Capozziello
@kristinhussey1 and @ChrisCappyPhoto
Hussey, a freelance journalist, and Capozziello, a freelance photojournalist, teamed up to examine the dangers and costs of the highly lucrative “gray market” for prescription drugs, as well as the challenges faced by regulators, healthcare providers and patients in detecting the point at which medicine transforms from life-saving to life-threatening.
Since 2007, Hussey has reported on race, corruption, philanthropy, catastrophe, guns, politics, poverty, resilience, greed, pizza and prom dresses for the New York Times. She was previously a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal Online, The Capital in Annapolis, Md., and The News in Boca Raton, Fla.
Capozziello is an award-winning freelance photojournalist whose work illustrates his experience in penetrating cultures that rarely welcome outsiders. His photos have been published in the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, L’Express, the Dallas Morning News and the Wall Street Journal among others. His book, The Distance Between Us, explored his relationship with his twin brother Nick who has cerebral palsy.
Bradley Keoun
An Austin, Texas-based freelance journalist and senior writer at TheStreet.com, Keoun covered financial markets for many years at Bloomberg, News. He was a lead reporter for its investigation into the Federal Reserve’s secret emergency loans during the financial crisis as well as its coverage of the “London Whale” trading scandal in 2012. Both stories were finalists for Loeb Award, the top prize in business journalism. He is a past recipient of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Freedom of Information Award and the Society of Professional Journalists Award for Public Service in Online Journalism. Prior to Bloomberg, Keoun was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Gainesville (Fla.) Sun.
During the Fellowship, Keoun examined the global risks stemming from the potential volatility and sharp declines in the values of emerging market assets. His story is currently being edited for publication.
Molly McCluskey
An independent journalist who divides her time between Washington D.C. and Europe, McCluskey has written extensively on global economic issues and their impact on individuals, institutions and nations. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera English, US News & World Report, Middle East Eye, The Washington Post and National Geographic, among others. Previously, she was an investigative reporter for The Motley Fool, where she was a co-author of the award-winning series, The Astonishing Collapse of MF Global. A 2014 recipient of an International Women’s Media Foundation reporting fellowship, McCluskey is a member of the Board of Governors of the National Press Club.
McCluskey used the Fellowship to investigate the growing impact of corporate donations on academic research, with a focus on where current transparency laws fall short and whether the public good is being compromised. Her story, “Public Universities Get an Education in Private Industry,” ran on TheAtlantic.com in April, 2017.
