Mike Toner was the recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism.
Toner was born in 1944 in Le Mars, Iowa and grew up in north west and north central Iowa. He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Toner graduated from Humboldt High School in Humboldt, Iowa in 1962. He received a B.A degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of Iowa in 1966 and a M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1967. He was a Professional Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 1973. [1]
Toner worked as a photographer for The Daily Iowan from 1962 to 1966. He was a night desk editor for United Press International in Chicago in 1966. He was the Key West bureau chief for the Miami Herald in 1966 and served as a general assignment reporter, copy editor, assistant city editor and science/environment/aerospace reporter at the Herald from 1967 to 1984. He was the science editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 1984 to 1991 and was a science writer for the newspaper there until he retired in 2004. He has since been a frequent contributor to American Archaeology magazine and Archaeology magazine.
His reporting is featured in William David Sloan's "Masterpieces of Reporting" (1997) and in the National Association of Science Writer's "A Field Guide for Science Writers" (1997).
In 1993 Toner won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for a series of articles about antibiotic and pesticide resistance. The 10-part series, 'When Bugs Fight Back,' was published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1992. In 2001, Toner received the Gene S. Stuart Award from the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) for a two-year series of stories about archaeological looting and the international traffic in illicit antiquities. The series, "The Past in Peril" was published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2000 and 2001. The articles were republished in book form by the National Park Service's Southeast Archaeological Center in 2002. The SAA awarded Toner a second Gene S. Stuart award in 2012 for an article in American Archaeology magazine, titled 'The Battle for the Dunkirk Schooner.’ The article was lauded by the SAA as "an ethically responsible and engaging view on the issues of antiquity ownership and the dangers of raising a shipwreck" that "brought an archaeological find and preservation issues to the attention of the public in a way all archaeologists can be proud of.". [2]
The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University that offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It frequently ranks as the top school of journalism in the United States. Medill alumni include 40 Pulitzer Prize laureates, numerous national correspondents for major networks, many well-known reporters, columnists and media executives.
The Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting has been presented since 1998, for a distinguished example of explanatory reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing and clear presentation. From 1985 to 1997, it was known as the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only major daily newspaper in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the result of the merger between The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. The two staffs were combined in 1982. Separate publication of the morning Constitution and the afternoon Journal ended in 2001 in favor of a single morning paper under the Journal-Constitution name.
The Daily Northwestern is the student newspaper at Northwestern University which is published in print on Mondays and Thursdays and online daily during the academic year. Founded in 1881, and printed in Evanston, Illinois, it is staffed primarily by undergraduates, many of whom are students at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.
The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication is a constituent college of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, United States. Established in 1915, Grady College offers undergraduate degrees in journalism, advertising, public relations, and entertainment and media studies, and master's and doctoral programs of study. Grady has consistently been ranked among the top schools of journalism education and research in the U.S.
Dennis Overbye is a science writer specializing in physics and cosmology and is the cosmic affairs correspondent for The New York Times.
Hank Klibanoff is an American journalist, now a professor at Emory University. He and Gene Roberts won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History for the book The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.
Ira Berkow is an American sports reporter, columnist, and writer. He shared the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, which was awarded to the staff of The New York Times for their series How Race Is Lived in America.
Tony Bartelme, an American journalist and author, is the senior projects reporter for The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina. He has been a finalist for four Pulitzer Prizes.
David Barstow is an American journalist and professor. While a reporter at The New York Times from 1999 to 2019, Barstow was awarded, individually or jointly, four Pulitzer Prizes, becoming the first reporter in the history of the Pulitzers to be awarded this many. In 2019, Barstow joined the faculty of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism as a professor of investigative journalism.
Valerie Boyd was an American writer and academic. She was best known for her biography of Zora Neale Hurston entitled Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. She was an associate professor and the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, where she taught narrative nonfiction writing, as well as arts and literary journalism.
Charles Duhigg is an American journalist and non-fiction author. He was a reporter for The New York Times, currently writes for The New Yorker Magazine and is the author of two books on habits and productivity, titled The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and Smarter Faster Better. In 2013, Duhigg was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series of 10 articles on the business practices of Apple and other technology companies.
Debbie Cenziper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist and nonfiction author. As of November 2022 she writes for ProPublica and is the director of the Medill Investigative Lab at Northwestern University. She spent more than a decade as an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, and has written two nonfiction books.
Geneva Overholser is a journalism consultant and adviser. A former editor of the Des Moines Register now living in New York City, Overholser speaks and writes about the future of journalism. She advises numerous organizations, including the Trust Project, Report for America, SciLine, the Democracy Fund and the Public Face of Science project at the Academy of American Arts and Sciences. She serves on the boards of the Rita Allen Foundation, Northwestern University in Qatar and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism Foundation.
Jeff Lyon won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1987, for The Chicago Tribune.
David Barboza is an American journalist.
Mike King is an American journalist and author. King spent most of his newspaper career working at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, and at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He is the author of Spirit of Charity: Restoring the Bond between America and Its Public Hospitals, which was published in 2016.
Ryan Jacobs is an American writer, and magazine editor. He is best known for his reporting in The Atlantic, his editing at Pacific Standard, and his critically acclaimed first book, The Truffle Underground.
Mary Pat Flaherty is an American journalist who specializes in investigative and long-range stories. She has won numerous national awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Specialized Reporting. Formerly of the Pittsburgh Press, she has worked for the Washington Post since 1993.
Robert Samuels is an American journalist. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker.