Eric Dexheimer
Recipient of the STAR REPORTER OF THE YEAR award in The Charles E. Green Awards (2025)
Eric Dexheimer
Houston Chronicle
Judge’s Comments:
Houston Chronicle investigative reporter Eric Dexheimer produced another solid year of groundbreaking work in 2025, starting with his ongoing coverage of the bizarre schemes and suspect practices of the Texas lottery, resulting in rule changes and the resignation of the agency’s executive director. With deep digging and clear writing, Dexheimer produced fascinating stories throughout the state, exposing dubious traffic stops and criminal sentencing disparities.
James Grimaldi
Judge’s Bio:
James V. Grimaldi is a multiple Pulitzer Prize winner and investigative journalist with deep experience in mentoring, writing, editing and nonprofit board work in the journalism industry. Among his laurels are Pulitzers for his work at The Washington Post in 2005 that exposed lobbyist Jack Abramoff's bribery schemes and at The Wall Street Journal in 2018 when he and a team identified federal regulators investing in companies they oversaw.
The work on judging the Headliners award was the last favor he was asked to do by Diana Fuentes, the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) executive director who died unexpectedly after an accidental fall while traveling. He is proud to keep his promise to do Diana a favor.
Grimaldi is a past president of IRE, where he has mentored young journalists for decades, and is a frequent guest lecturer at universities. Grimaldi is a member of the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the nation's leading defender of the media's First Amendment protections, and he previously served on the board of the Fund for Investigative Journalism, where he continues to mentor grantees as a senior advisor.
The former executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter, Grimaldi has a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri Journalism School and master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was a Knight Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Creighton University in 2025. He also was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and frequently guest lectures at many journalism programs, among them George Washington University and Morgan State University.
To read Eric Dexheimer’s prize-winning work, please click the link below: