Rosebud Winner: NYT Art Critic Holland Cotter Writes Sweeping Obit of The Legendary David Hockney

JUNE 2026 - The British artist, writer and general creative David Hockney died earlier this month, age 88. And quite naturally dozens of obituaries were sent out by media outlets worldwide. But no obituary quite captured the spirit and life of Hockney quite like that penned by the NYT art critic Holland Cotter, who seemed to have a special understanding of his subject. Hockney spent his adult life - much in the late 20th Century, then in ferment of classicism vs. modernism - bridging those divides, an artistic iconoclast who defended or promoted what was out of style. In the politically charged atmosphere of the 1990s art world, this pedigree and Mr. Hockney’s disdainful rejection of the avant-garde felt out of date. But with the return to favor of painting — and figuration — in the early 21st century, he regained some footing. Even if much of his late output looks like busywork, some of his early paintings are lastingly moving. “My Parents,” from 1977, is one of them. In it, his mother sits erect but relaxed, looking attentively and cooperatively toward the artist; his father, though dressed in a suit, bends intently and...

Rosebud Winner: SF Chronicle Examines the Meteoric Rise of Indian-American Communities in the Bay Area

JUNE 2026 - You have to be a subscriber to SFChronicle.com to access it, but a May 26 report on the growth of the Indian American community in the Bay Area is well worth a read - and a worthy Rosebud winner to boot. It's available, too, on Apple News, which distributed the story and caught readers' eyes worldwide. The US press is generally gun-shy on serious and in-depth reports on specific ethnic groups, especially expansive, long-term takes such as this one. The basic question: How much longer will the fast-growing group - some nationalized Americans, some not - continue its dramatic and conspicuous rise? The story includes several dynamic graphs of population growth and general increases in Indian-related institutions, such as temples. The report is a thorough treatment about an ethnic group that's had a huge impact on central California. The reporters listed for this story are Ko Lyn Cheang, Sarah Ravani, Sriharsha Devulapalli. https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2026/indian-american-sf-bay-area/

Rosebud Winner: ProPublica’s Year-long Series on US Oversight of Generic Drugs

JUNE 2026 - Its first story on the subject was published a year ago this week, and since then nonprofit investigative news service ProPublica has deployed more than a dozen reporters to address regulation of generic drugs in the US. The bottom line from all that work: The marketplace of generic medications has lax oversight, leading to risks for consumers that have been widely ignored. ProPublica's first story ran June 17, 2025, and continued through the year; in December the outfit released a database for anyone to learn where their generic drugs are manufactured. More stories appeared in the first half of this year. The scope of the project is rare in today's resource-starved world of investigative journalism. Among the reporters who undertook the yearlong project: Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose, Brandon Roberts, Ruth Talbot, Nick McMillan, Irena Hwang, and more who contributed from the Medill Investigative Lab. The series was a finalist for a 2025 Pulitzer Prize. https://www.propublica.org/article/rx-inspector-prescription-drug-lookup https://www.propublica.org/series/rx-roulette

Rosebud Winner: A “Cattle Empire Ponzi Scheme” Laid Out by Two WSJ Reporters

JUNE 2026 - Two WSJ reporters - one based in London - earlier this month did a post-mortem on the sad tale of a Kentucky man who grossly overstated the size of his far-flung cattle herds, getting into hock so deep that he committed suicide when his financial house of cards began to collapse. Part of the story involves Holland-based Rabo Bank, which extended tens of millions of dollars in credit to the man, Brian McClain. In early 2023 McClain shot himself when sheriff's deputies were about to arrest him for writing bad checks. Stories such as this are not terribly difficult to report - the dead guy at the center of the story can't answer for his actions, and there's a long document trail after three years of a bankruptcy process. But is is laid out clearly, and not too breathlessly, while explaining the culture of long-term trust between lenders and cattle ranchers, who report their herd numbers as bank collateral pretty much on a handshake. Moreover, several local investors got deceived as well by what turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. One of the reporters, Nebraska native Patrick Thomas, writes about "agriculture and America's...