The Examination and The New York Times have won the prestigious Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting for revealing that battery recycling factories in Nigeria that supply the U.S. auto industry are poisoning their communities with lead.

The award, presented by the USC Annenberg School of Journalism, recognizes investigative journalism that informs the public about major problems and corruption and yields concrete results.

This investigation prompted swift action. The Nigerian government shut down seven factories and announced plans to conduct environmental testing and offer free blood tests to residents. Even before the first story was published, a major American battery maker halted purchases of lead from Nigeria and tightened its supplier rules.

“The achievement of this story was to connect the poison inflicted on children and workers in a small village in Nigeria directly to the factories of major car makers,” the Selden Ring judges said in announcing the award, which carries a $50,000 prize. “No one else was able to piece this story together. If not for this work, the factories would have continued raining toxic pollution, endangering the future of countless communities.”

To document the harm, The Examination and the Times worked with a Nigerian research organization to conduct extensive testing in Ogijo, Nigeria, the heart of Africa’s battery recycling industry. 

Seventy percent of people who volunteered for blood tests had lead poisoning. More than half the children tested had levels that could cause lifelong brain damage. In surveys commissioned by the news outlets, people reported common symptoms of lead poisoning: headaches, stomachaches, seizures, learning delays and other neurological complaints.

Lead poisoning from all sources affects about one in three children globally and kills more people annually than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. Unsafe recycling of lead-acid batteries has been estimated to account for a third of lead exposure in low- and middle-income countries.

Proving the harm was essential, but so was connecting it to factories and boardrooms in the United States. Reporters Will Fitzgibbon of The Examination and Peter S. Goodman of the Times tracked shipments of lead to the U.S., spoke to people involved in lead recycling and trading, and examined transportation records to confirm connections between Nigerian factories, the trading company Trafigura and one of the world’s largest battery manufacturers, East Penn Manufacturing. That company supplies Ford, Honda and BMW, among others. 

“It blew my mind to learn that something as toxic as lead was pouring into the United States from Nigeria with so little awareness,” Fitzgibbon said. “Every battery maker and every car company is now on notice to know where their lead comes from and who it might be harming.”

He and Goodman also discovered that the auto industry has known for decades the consequences of using lead that has been recycled unsafely — but car and battery makers have failed to act and have even thwarted efforts to clean up the industry.

The project demonstrates “extraordinary rigor, collaboration and moral clarity,” said USC Annenberg Dean Willow Bay. “We are honored to partner once again with the Ring Foundation to recognize reporting that not only informs the public, but drives real-world change, protects vulnerable communities and advances justice across borders.”

Along with Fitzgibbon and Goodman, Examination Deputy Managing Editor Taylor Turner was recognized for spearheading a 13-minute documentary about the community of Ogijo. The video has been viewed more than 217,000 times, mostly in Nigeria.

Also recognized were Samuel Granados, visual correspondent for The Times; Finbarr O’Reilly and Carmen Abd Ali, freelance photographers for the Times; and the staff of The Examination and the Times.

In addition to its partnership with The Times, The Examination worked with the Premium Times in Nigeria, Truth Reporting Post in Togo and ClassFM in Ghana. (In Togo, the government has responded by conducting its own testing to confirm lead contamination discovered by The Examination.)

Partnering with local media outlets around the world is key to The Examination’s mission as it works to uncover the companies and policies responsible for preventable health threats. Since launching in September 2023, The Examination has teamed up with more than 70 news outlets worldwide. 

The Times and The Examination’s stories received widespread attention in Nigeria media. Government officials said they were prompted to act by a Times video that featured a boy with lead poisoning; that video has been viewed more than 2 million times.

To reach people most affected, The Examination created a WhatsApp channel to share short, easy-to read posts summarizing its findings and providing guidance on how to reduce lead exposure.

“This reporting has sparked more meaningful change, more quickly, than any project in my career,” said Ben Hallman, The Examination’s executive director. “While we are delighted by this recognition, we are foremost in the business of delivering journalism that improves lives. We are so very pleased that our reporting on the lead trade is making a tangible difference in communities exposed to an invisible, deadly poison.”