I'm fortunate to have worked with great editors and reporters and to have received international recognition for my journalism and books.

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See below for links to some of my award-winning work.

Investigating Google's Ad Business

These ProPublica articles were part of a package that won the Data Journalism and Media/Entertainment categories at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers Best in Business awards.​

• "Porn, Piracy, Fraud: What Lurks Inside Google’s Black Box Ad Empire​"​

• "How Google’s Ad Business Funds Disinformation Around the World"

• "Google Says It Bans Gun Ads. It Actually Makes Money From Them."

• "Google Allowed a Sanctioned Russian Ad Company to Harvest User Data for Months"

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Investigating Facebook

These articles were part of a package that received the George Polk Award.​

• “Facebook Gets Paid"​

• “Facebook Fired An Employee who Collected Evidence of Right-Wing Pages Getting Preferential Treatment”

• “‘I Have Blood On My Hands’: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation”

• "How Facebook Failed Kenosha"

 
These stories won the MacGillivray Award for investigation of the year from the Canadian Association of Journalists.​

• "Trap King: How A Massive Facebook Scam Siphoned Millions Of Dollars From Unsuspecting Boomers

• "A US Ad Agency Was Behind Those Fake Ads Featuring Marilyn Denis, Mike Holmes, And Ron McLean"

• "Exclusive: Facebook Fired A Contractor Who Was Paid Thousands In Bribes To Reactivate Banned Ad Accounts"​​​​

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Revealing Fake News, Online Misinformation, Media Manipulation 

A package of these articles was named a finalist for the John M. Higgins Award For Best In Depth/Enterprise Reporting about the media industry.

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• “How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News”

• "Macedonia’s Pro-Trump Fake News Industry Had American Links, And Is Under Investigation For Possible Russia Ties"

• “This Analysis Shows How Viral Fake Election News Stories Outperformed Real News On Facebook”

• “Welcome To The Age Of Cheap Overseas Information"

• "How YouTube's 'Super Chat' System Is Pushing Video Creators Toward More Extreme Content"

• "A DC Think Tank Used Fake Social Media Accounts, A Bogus Expert, And Fancy Events To Reach The NSA, FBI, And White House"

• "How Facebook Groups Are Being Exploited To Spread Misinformation, Plan Harassment, And Radicalize People"

Investigating Hyperpartisan Political Publishing

A package of these stories won the Carey Williams Award from the American Political Science Association.

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• "Inside the Partisan Fight For Your News Feed"

• "This Is How Your Hyperpartisan Political News Gets Made"

• “Hyperpartisan Facebook Pages Are Publishing False And Misleading Information At An Alarming Rate”

• The Money Is Rolling In For Liberal Hyperpartisan Sites And It’s Tearing Some Of Them Apart

Exposing Digital Ad Fraud

A package of these articles was named a finalist for the John M. Higgins Award For Best In Depth/Enterprise Reporting about the media industry. 

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• "Ad Industry Insiders Profited From An Ad Fraud Scheme That Researchers Say Stole Millions Of Dollars"

• “Myspace Looked Like It Was Back. Actually, It Was A Pawn In An Ad Fraud Scheme”

• "How To Create Web Traffic 'Out Of Thin Air'"

• "A Bunch Of Digital Publishers Bought Cheap Traffic And Later Found Out It Was Fraudulent"

• “The Publisher of Newsweek And The International Business Times Has Been Buying Traffic And Engaging In Ad Fraud"

Other Award-Winning Work

I won the Silver Medal in Investigative Reporting at the 2020 Canadian National Magazine Awards for a story about shady online reputation management consultants. ​

I received Best Commentary, Digital Media in 2013 for my work on Regret the Error at Poynter. I was twice a finalist (2010, 2011) for Best Commentary, Digital Media for columns written for Columbia Journalism Review.​

I won a Silver Medal at the 2011 National Magazine Awards in the Best Multimedia Feature category. This was for an audio slideshow I wrote and narrated for Report on Business Magazine. That same piece was a finalist for Best Video at the 2010 Canadian Online Publishing Awards. In 2009, I received a Silver Medal in the Humour category for an article in Maisonneuve magazine. I also shared a Gold Medal in the Service: Personal Finance & Business category at the 2008 National Magazine Awards. The award was for a package of articles published in Report on Business magazine.​

My book, Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, won the 2008 Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism (book) from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.​

My book, Mafiaboy: How I Cracked The Internet and Why It’s Still Broken, won the award for Canadian non-fiction crime book of the year at the Arthur Ellis Awards in 2009. The awards are given by the Crime Writers of Canada.