The Frontier and ProPublica’s investigative series Fields of Green has been named a semifinalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
Awarded annually by Harvard University, the prize honors American journalism that best promotes the effective and ethical conduct of government. The series is one of 30 semifinalists that the judges “deemed to be of extremely high quality and in keeping with the prize’s criteria for impact on U.S. government, public policy, or the practice of politics.”
Five finalists will be selected in the coming weeks, with the winner announced in April.
The six-part series, written by Garrett Yalch and Clifton Adcock of The Frontier and Sebastian Rotella and Kirsten Berg of ProPublica, revealed how powerful Chinese mafias have come to dominate the multibillion-dollar marijuana underworld in the U.S., exploiting weak oversight in Oklahoma and forcing thousands of immigrant workers into conditions that resemble modern slavery.
Following publication of the series, Oklahoma lawmakers passed tougher laws, referenced the findings in legislative debates, and prosecutors intensified marijuana-related investigations. In November, a federal human trafficking task force launched an investigation into cases detailed in the series. The project also sparked a national conversation about the consequences of America’s patchwork approach to cannabis legalization and was cited in U.S. congressional reports and hearings, legal briefs on federal cannabis rescheduling, federal law enforcement memos, and legislative debates in other states.
The Frontier continues to track criminal networks and labor exploitation in Oklahoma’s marijuana industry. Last week, it published a report on the persistence of illicit operations and new efforts to strengthen oversight of the industry.
