The Selden Ring Foundation has sponsored the ceremony since 1989 in partnership with the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, and boasts the largest journalism prize in America at $50 thousand.
The annual award ceremony honors investigative journalism that seeks to inform the public about issues that impact local, national, and global communities. This year’s winners were Katey Rusch and Casey Smith, investigative journalists and UC Berkeley alumnae.
The duo worked on their two-part series “Right to Remain Secret”, for five years: The series exposes how law enforcement officials can engage in misconduct and still remain on the job in California.
Katie Rusch, a co-author on the project, spoke to Annenberg Media about what drew her to the story.
“Investigative reporting is something that I have always felt really strongly about doing, because it takes secrets and it puts them out in the open, and you are only able to do that when you can make a time commitment, you can make a commitment to get access to that information”
Rusch and her co-author Casey Smith investigated hundreds of local law enforcement agencies to uncover their use and abuse of what law enforcement calls “secret clean record agreements.”
The so-called “clean record agreement” is a contract between a federal agency and an employee. It seeks to remove potentially negative information from an employee’s record in exchange for resolving an employment-related claim.
“This wasn’t just a story that looked at agreements,” Smith said. “But what I think Katie was really able to do... was to show that there is a system that exists ... that allows... officers with misconduct and other issues in their past to continue to be officers.”
A 2019 law enabled Rusch and Smith’s investigation: The law still stands today, and it allows for public access to certain police records that were initially confidential.
The investigative reporters found, through their interviews with police chiefs and sheriffs, that many of these high ranking law enforcement officials were hiring others without having full knowledge of their background.
Rigorous research revealed 163 law enforcement agencies in California had signed “secret clean record agreements” with about 300 officers: More than 100 of them landed jobs later at other police departments in the state., and others worked either in correctional careers or as security guards.
The impact of the reporter’s work resulted in an immediate investigation launched by the California state pension system’s manager.
This investigation looked specifically into disability pensions as a result of Katie Rusch and Casey Smith’s work. More than a half-dozen officers lost their jobs, had their law enforcement licenses revoked, or were not considered for a chief’s position.
The two reporters won the prestigious Selden Ring Award for 2025.