The Sidney Hillman Foundation

An immigration raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood shatters an immigrant refuge

Here are some of the stories that impressed our judges:

Los Angeles Times wins July Sidney for impactful coverage of ICE raids The staff of the Los Angeles Times win the July Sidney Award for the paper’s coverage of federal immigration raids. Los Angeles is the current epicenter of the Trump administration’s sweeping immigrat...

The staff of the @latimes.com wins the July Sidney for their impactful coverage of the ICE raids.

CEO of Elon Musk’s X, Linda Yaccarino, resigns The announcement comes a day after the social media site’s AI chatbot made antisemitic statements. Yaccarino did not offer a reason for her resignation.

Breaking news: Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of Elon Musk’s X.

Her resignation comes one day after the platform's AI chatbot Grok made posts referencing Hitler that were later deleted.

Sidney's Picks: The Budget by the Numbers The Best of the Week's News The horrors of the Republican budget in 10 charts. (NYT) “Free fall”: A public health crisis looms as RFKjr attacks vaccines. (TNR) Camera catches ICE agents urinating in a...

Sidney’s Picks: Happy Fourth to the tired, the poor, the thoroughly exasperated…

Sidney's Picks: Bill Moyers Dies at 91 The Best of the Week's News Legendary broadcaster Bill Moyers dies at 91. (AP) Senate Republicans consider hiking federal employees’ pension contributions—except for members of Congress and their staf...

Sidney's Picks: Remember Bill Moyers, a death in ICE custody, a looming crisis for bird conservation, a sleazy Republican pension scheme, and more.

The secret death of Darryl Dean Mefferd In 2016, a man died in Vallejo police custody in a manner hauntingly similar to George Floyd. Local officials have kept the killing covered up — until now.

An Open Vallejo investigation published last June revealed that in December 2016, Vallejo police officer Jeremy Callinan held Mefferd facedown until he stopped breathing, then delayed calling for medical help.

.@sidneyhillman.bsky.social honors journalism in service of the common good. The award recognizes reporting published the previous month. Judges were @jamellebouie.net, @havana58.bsky.social, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alix Freedman, Harold Meyerson, Katrina vanden Heuvel and @beyerstein.bsky.social.

Anna Bauman of Open Vallejo wins the June Sidney Award for tenaciously peeling back layers of official secrecy to expose Darryl Mefferd’s death in police custody.

Open Vallejo wins June Sidney for Uncovering the Truth Behind a Death in Police Custody Anna Bauman, formerly of Open Vallejo, wins the June Sidney Award for tenaciously peeling back layers of official secrecy to expose Darryl Mefferd’s death in police custody. On a cold December night i...

Congratulations to Anna Bauman and @openvallejo.org on winning the June Sidney Award for their deep dive into a death in police custody eerily similar to that of George Floyd.

Sidney's Picks: Major MAHA Report Contains Fake Citations The Best of the Week's News Major MAHA child health report cited numerous imaginary papers, which suggests the whole document was AI-generated. (NOTUS, NYT) Remembering legendary New York muckraker an...

Sidney's Picks: Major MAGA report contains fake citations and major errors; NYPD detective on Mayor Adams' security detail investigated in connection with crypto kidnapping.

Congratulations to Zachary Sampson, Shreya Vuttaluru, Bethany Barnes and the whole team at the Tampa Bay Times on winning this month's Sidney for their sweeping investigation of manatee deaths in Florida and the state's declining water quality.

Tampa Bay Times wins May Sidney for Sounding the Alarm About Florida’s Manatee Crisis Zachary Sampson, Shreya Vuttaluru and Bethany Barnes win the May Sidney Award for “Wasting Away,” a Tampa Bay Times investigation into the mass die-off of manatees in Florida. The manatee is a gentle ...

The Tampa Bay Times wins the May Sidney for their first-of-its-kind investigation into the water quality crisis that is killing the state’s manatees:

And that’s it for #Hillman25, folks! Thanks for celebrating with us. Congratulations to all the winners. And see you next year!

@elienyc.bsky.social: Courage is not the absence of fear, it’s the acceptance of fear. It’s feeling the fear and doing what you have to do anyway. #hillman25

@elienyc.bsky.social: If you’re not afraid of what they will do to you, you’re doing it wrong. If you think you can leave this country and come back easily, you’re doing it wrong.

Jamelle Bouie and Elie Mystal

Jamelle Bouie

#hillman25 judge @jamellebouie.net introduces opinion journalism prize by noting that winner @elienyc.bsky.social reminds us that the justice systembelong to us and it's our responsibility to critique and hold them accountable to the public. Mystal demystifies the Courts in accessible, powerful ways

@elienyc.bsky.social accepts Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis journalism.

Hillman judge @jamellebouie.net presents Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis journalism to @elienyc.bsky.social for Supreme Court coverage in The Nation.

@danslepian.bsky.social visited one of the subjects of “Sing Sing Chronicles” over 200 times and met him before he met his own daughter, who graduates from college this weekend. #Hillman25

Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect @prospect.org presents #HillmanPrizes to Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti, whose @nytimes.com NYT magazine piece on the rise of the Israeli right, and government complicity in settler attacks on Palestinians in occupied territories. #hillman2025

Katrina van den Heuvel, #Hillman25 judge, introducing the broadcast journalism awards for The Sing Sing Chronicles, makes a point that I'm always so aware of at this annual event:

Journalism is not in crisis, the business model is. No one here is going on bended knee to power.

The Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism goes to @danslepian.bsky.social,
Dawn Porter, and Kimberley Ferdinando of
NBC News Studios and @msnbc.com for “Sing Sing Chronicles.” #hillman25

Hillman judge @katrinavanden.bsky.social presents Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism for Sing Sing Chronicles which releases 6 wrongfully convicted men.

So great to see Robin McDowell and Margie Mason of the Associated Press @apnews.com honored with the SEIU prize for racial justice reporting for their exposure of slave farm labor at US prisons to provide cheap produce for Big Food. Mason accepted for both journas. #Hillman2025

Mark Mazzetti

Mark Mazzetti and Harold Meyerson

@markmazzetti.bsky.social and Ronan Bergman win #hillman25 magazine journalism for The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel.

Mark notes that current US policy under Trump would "fulfill the dream" of the most violent extremists.

(As an American Jew I am so deeply appreciative of their work)