Canadian journalism foundation honors Susanne Craig for fearless accountability reporting

Susanne Craig’s return to Canada ended with a prize that said as much about the state of public life as it did about her career. The Canadian Journalism Foundation gave the Calgary-born reporter its CJF Tribute at the annual awards evening on June 10 at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, recognizing her for “probing coverage of power, money and accountability.”

Natalie Turvey, the foundation’s president and executive director, said Craig “represents the very best of investigative journalism: fearless, meticulous and unwavering in her commitment to accountability.” That language fit a reporter whose work has repeatedly forced hidden financial claims into public view at a time when trust in institutions remains under pressure.

Craig, a University of Calgary graduate with a BA in 1991, got her start at The Gauntlet, the student newspaper where many Canadian journalists first learn the discipline of verification and persistence. She went on to work for The New York Times, where she has been on staff since 2010 and has built a reputation for investigations that track the intersection of money and politics.

Her most widely known work focused on Donald Trump’s finances. In 2016, Craig obtained pages from Trump’s 1995 tax returns, a disclosure that intensified scrutiny of the former president’s wealth claims and long-standing secrecy around his finances. She later co-authored major investigations into those claims, reporting that helped bring greater public understanding to how Trump described his wealth and how those assertions held up under scrutiny.

That reporting earned Craig a share of the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2019, a recognition that underscored the public value of a story many institutions would rather leave unanswered. In an era when political money, tax secrecy and private wealth can shape public policy without much visibility, Craig’s work showed how investigative reporting can widen the democratic record.

The CJF Tribute placed Craig among a distinguished group of previous honorees that includes Maria Ressa, André Picard, Sanjay Gupta, Anna Maria Tremonti, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, Jake Tapper, Tina Brown, Sir Harold Evans, Malcolm Gladwell, David Suzuki, Lisa LaFlamme, Kara Swisher and Tanya Talaga. Her 2024 appointment to the Order of Canada had already marked her as one of the country’s most prominent investigative journalists, and the Toronto honor confirmed that standing.