April 25, 2026 - The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette captured one of the country’s most competitive awards for health care reporting for its 2025 investigative series, Deadly Dust, which revealed how federal regulators failed to crack down on coal companies that exposed miners to dangerous levels of coal dust, despite the worst surge of black lung cases in decades.

The project received first place in investigative reporting in the 2025 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism contest for stories that showed how the Mine Safety and Health Administration was not penalizing coal operators when inspectors repeatedly turned up hazardous levels of dust in hundreds of mines.

The Post-Gazette reporters, who worked in collaboration with Northwestern University's Medill Investigative Lab, tracked down miners across Appalachia who were suffering from black lung after years of exposure to silica dust, one of the most toxic elements in mining.

Other first-place winners in the contest, sponsored by the Association of Health Care Journalists, include the New York Times, ProPublica, The Wall Street Journal, Mississippi Today and The Fuller Project.Now in its 22nd year, the contest drew 396 entries in 16 categories, according to the association’s announcement. There were 16 first-place winners.

“We’re extremely proud of the exhaustive and revelatory reporting of our journalists, and hope this national recognition in some way cont

inues to cast an important light on this urgent public health crisis impacting many miners and their families across our region,” said Stan Wischnowski, the Post-Gazette’s executive editor.

The Post-Gazette's reporting team, including Michael D. Sallah, Mike Wereschagin and Jimmy Cloutier, found that regulators were warned about the need to impose limits on the amount of silica — which comes from the drilling of sandstone and other rock — in caverns where miners were working. But the government didn’t act on the warnings, leaving thousands of miners to fend for themselves without any protections.

In addition to the findings about silica, the Post-Gazette was among the first news organizations in the country to report that the Trump administration was preparing to shut down more than 30 federal mine safety offices, the same facilities that investigate deaths and injuries in underground caverns.

Just weeks after publication, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, dropped its plans to shutter most of the safety offices, leaving the staffs intact.

In summarizing the work, the judges wrote: “This impressive series marshalled a team to chronicle the crushing of the mine safety system that was, even before the current administration’s push to cut regulations, unable to keep up with oversight inspections.

“By throwing everything they had at the story, the reporting and editorial team was able to halt the wholesale elimination of the mine safety system. At least for now, as evidenced by the closure of arguably the best inspection branch office in the system. In terms of fighting the good fight against overwhelming odds, and the assemblage of anecdotes, facts, data, and images brought to bear is extraordinary.”

The awards will be presented on May 30 in Minneapolis at the Association of Health Care Journalists annual conference.