Over 2,400 entries are submitted annually, which are reviewed by 102 judges in 20 juries. Winners are chosen by the Pulitzer Prize Board and typically announced every spring. The awards were established in Joseph Pulitzer’s will and funded by a $2 million endowment to Columbia University.

Pulitizer Prize

The team of the Pablo Torre Finds Out (PTFO) podcast, which is produced by Meadowlark Media, was awarded the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting earlier this week. The award was given for investigating how the Los Angeles Clippers pro basketball team allegedly evaded NBA salary cap rules by funneling money to Kawhi Leonard, one of the team’s star players. The four-part investigation uncovered a $28 million deal with a third-party company. Torre and his staff won for his Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting, specifically for investigative, "live podcast journalism" regarding L.A. Clippers-Aspiration financial links. The report investigated potential $28 million in "no-show" marketing deals via startup Aspiration, tied to Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, in potential violating NBA rules.

Other finalists in that category included The New York Times for The Protocol and The Wall Street Journal for Camp Swamp Road.

The official Pulitzer Prize announcement read: “For a pioneering and entertaining form of live podcast journalism that investigated how the Los Angeles Clippers seemingly evaded the NBA’s salary cap rules by funneling money to a star player through an environmental startup.”

The podcast won the award for four episodes in September that probed the financial relationship between Clippers All-Star Kawhi Leonard and Aspiration, a now-defunct third-party company that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer had invested in.

Per the findings of the PTFO investigation, Aspiration signed Leonard to a $28 million no-show marketing deal, with the implication that this money was instead funneled to Leonard from Ballmer in violation of the NBA’s salary cap.

Per the report, Ballmer personally invested $50 million in Aspiration when it was founded in 2021, and then Clippers signed a $300 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration.

Ballmer has vehemently denied wrongdoing and has said to multiple media outlets that “he had been conned by Aspiration.” Joseph Sanberg, Aspirations’s co-founder, has already pled guilty to federal wire fraud charges in 2025 for his role in a scheme that prosecutors say defrauded investors of $248 million.

Steve Ballmer, once Microsoft CEO, wrote a letter last month to the judge overseeing Sanberg’s sentencing. In that letter, Ballmer acknowledged introducing Aspiration to Leonard in a September interview with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, but denied any knowledge of the $28 million endorsement deal.

What is the Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a prestigious annual award recognizing excellence in journalism, literature, drama, and music, administered by Columbia University in New York. Established by publisher Joseph Pulitzer in 1917, it is regarded as the highest national honor for U.S. print journalism, photography, and arts, with 21 categories honored annually.

Prizes are awarded in 21 categories, including 14 for journalism (reporting, photography, criticism, editorial) and 7 for letters, drama, and music.

Entries must generally come from U.S. newspapers, magazines, or news sites, including specific, high-standard news sites associated with broadcast media.

Pablo Torre unmasked

Pablo S. Torre is an American journalist, podcaster, and television host known for his investigative sports media work. He hosts the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, which won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting. Before the podcast, Torre worked as a writer/host at ESPN, known for High Noon and ESPN Daily. A Harvard graduate, Torre began his career at Sports Illustrated before joining ESPN as a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and a regular on sports talk shows like Around the Horn.

Torre is well-known for combining deep investigation with a witty, sometimes absurd, approach to speaking truth to power. Produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic, the show focuses on "taking stupid things seriously," conducting deep-dive "talkumentary" investigations into complex, often shady, areas of sports, business, and culture.

Torre has a history of tackling high-profile and underreported scandals. For example, in collaboration with WIRED, Torre investigated the surveillance practices of Madison Square Garden (MSG) Entertainment owner James Dolan. The MSG security was found to be using facial-recognition technology to monitor and identify people, including patrons and adversaries, across their venues. In some cases, people were denied entry due to the technology.

In 2026, the show investigated how convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein used the biggest brand in academia to launder his reputation. The investigation uncovered a $25,000 Jeffrey E. Epstein Fund for Women’s Athletics at Harvard that was not disclosed in the university’s own 2020 self-investigation.

Earlier in his career, Torre worked for Sports Illustrated, and he investigated the financial ruin of professional athletes. His investigative work sparked a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation of Triton Financial for a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme that defrauded athletes.

Several podcasts have won the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting, an award established in 2020. Key winners include This American Life (2020), No Compromise (2021), Suave (2022), Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s (2023), and You Didn't See Nothin (2024), along with In the Dark: The Killings in Haditha (2025).

In an interview, sports podcast marketer Gary Condant remarked, "First, kudos to Pablo Torre and his team for taking on this investigation. Second, this award reinforces the important role that investigative journalism holds in a democratic nation. As print journalism has faded and with it the zealous reporting of dedicated local reporters, it’s heartening to see podcasting picking up that baton."