The recipients of the New York Financial Writers’ Association’s 2021’s Impact Award for Distinguished Financial Journalism, Michael Smith and Nacha Cattan of Bloomberg News, discuss the story behind their series of articles that spurred one of the spotlighted companies to exit a business highlighted in the stories. Smith and Cattan, along with former Bloomberg News editor Cam Simpson who now lives in London and was unable to take part in the discussion, were chosen as award winners for their investigative reporting that exposed how leading U.S. chemical companies fuel the narcotics labs flooding America with deadly drugs. (“Heroin’s Hidden Ingredient Is a Chemical Made by U.S. Companies” “U.S. Chemical Companies Face Few Legal Risks, and the Cartels Bank On It.” “Narcos Are Waging a New Drug War Over a Texas Company’s Basic Chemical.”) The discussion is facilitated by NYFWA board member John Biers, a business correspondent for Agence France-Presse.
Nacha Cattan is the Bloomberg News Bureau chief in Mexico City, where she leads a team of reporters and editors. Jointly, the team produces more news about business and the economy than any other international media outlet in Mexico. Before becoming Bureau Chief in November 2019, Cattan covered Mexico’s economy and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration. She was the first international journalist to interview AMLO during his last campaign, and the first one to feature him on the cover of a magazine (Businessweek). Since joining Bloomberg in 2011, she has won two Chicago Headline Club awards, as well as an NABJ award for her journalistic work. Prior to Bloomberg, Cattan worked for the Associated Press in Mexico, managing ‘’stringers’’ and editing their work. As an interim chief at The Christian Science Monitor, she covered migration and the war on drugs. Cattan started her career at Forward in New York, where she won a Rockower award.
Cam Simpson recently joined Tiger Global Management, where he does qualitative research and analysis on public and private markets. At the time the above stories were written, he was an international investigations editor and writer for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine and Bloomberg News. He previously worked for the Wall Street Journal, with posts in the Middle East and Washington, and as a Washington-based correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, where he was responsible for covering US foreign policy and investigative projects. Simpson is the recipient of two George Polk Awards, three awards from the Overseas Press Club of America, and numerous other honors.
Michael Smith is a Miami-based investigative reporter at Bloomberg News. He’s written about financial crimes, corruption, narcotics, human trafficking, and environmental and labor abuses in corporate supply chains. Recently, he’s reported on Covid-19 outbreaks on ships, deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, the culture wars in Texas and Florida and cryptocurrencies. Smith’s national awards include the prestigious George Polk, Maria Moors Cabot, Robert F. Kennedy and Gerald Loeb prizes. Cabin Fever, his first book, about a deadly coronavirus outbreak on a cruise ship, will be published in June by Doubleday.
About the Impact Award:
Established by the New York Financial Writers’ Association in 2019, the Impact Award honors a story or body of work by business journalists whose reporting spurred impact, irrespective of when the story or stories were published.
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