We came in a close second to the winner of the $10,000 prize: The New Orleans Times-Picayune, for an exposé of insurance fraud in the wake of Katrina. But what was especially gratifying was that, of all the reporting on the foreclosure crisis last year, The Enquirer’s series was judged as good or better than news organizations 10 times its size.

Here’s the comments from the judges:

Well reported series on the subprime mortgage crisis comprised seven of the nine finalists… But a wonderfully reported enterprise series by Rebecca Mowbray of the New Orleans Times-Picayune on insurance fraud in the wake of Katrina Hurricane took the $10,000 award.

Honorable mention and a $1,000 prize went to Gregory Korte and Alexander Coolidge of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The IPJ competition for 2007 drew the largest number of entries in its history.

The seven finalists writing on the subprime mess were the Wall Street Journal, the Seattle Times, the Miami Herald, Bloomberg News, the Sacramento Bee, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Asbury Park Press. The Detroit News submitted a fine series on the sale of Chrysler Corp. to a private equity group by Mercedes Benz.

The Wall Street Journal threw an army of reporters at the subprime crisis over the course of the year. Bloomberg News produced a number of prophetic pieces labeling certain kinds of subprimre mortgage securities “toxic waste” and predicting the crisis that was about to break.

But The Cincinnati Enquirer and Sacramento Bee series were judged the best of the subprime efforts. The Enquirer’s Gregory Korte and Alexander Coolidge produced more than a dozen pieces showing every aspect of the crisis as it destroyed values, shattered lives, and transformed whole communities in the Cincinnati area. The Sacramento Bee’s eight part series matched them in excellence, but four reporters were involved. So the judges awarded the honorable mention to the Enquirer’s outnumbered two.

The Enquirer’s and Bee’s series almost took top prize. But in the end, the judges felt the work of Mowbray at the Times-Picayune was first among almost equals and most deserved the award.

Judges were Rich Thomas of Newsweek; Mike Ruby, formerly of U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek and the Milwaukee Journal; and John Merline, formerly at USA Today and now AOL.

Congratulations to the Times-Picayune for the well deserved award.

We came up with some pretty interesting findings, and we think it’s some of the most detailed reporting on retail gas prices done anywhere.

We’re scheduled to go on WVXU’s Impact Cincinnati program Thursday morning to explain our findings and take questions. The show airs on 91.7 FM at 9:20 a.m.

UPDATE: Here’s the Impact Cincinnati program in .mp3 format.

It’s been 15 years this fall since my byline last appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. This week, it was back.

The Cincinnati Enquirer has joined a consortium of Ohio newspapers pooling resources to fact-check election year political ads. Each paper will take turns reviewing an ad for accuracy, and share the story with the other papers. I’ll be the primary reporter for the Enquirer. Other papers participating are the Plain Dealer, The Columbus Dispatch, The Dayton Daily News and the Canton Repository.

It’s part of a larger cooperative being formed by most of Ohio’s largest daily newspapers to share stories as an alternative to the Associated Press. (See coverage in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and WNYC’s On The Media.)

My first Ad Watch report, on the Obama campaign’s “New Energy” ad, appeared in the Plain Dealer, the Columbus Dispatch and the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The award was for Foreclosure’s Fallout, a story I wrote with colleague Alexander Coolidge. The series used an examination of 30,000 foreclosures and interviews with dozens of homeowners and neighbors to explain the toll of home repossessions in Cincinnati neighborhoods, examine the role of local lenders and investigate the way sheriff’s sales are conducted.

It’s quite an honor, considering the worthy competition from other newspapers in parts of the state even harder hit by the foreclosure crisis.

Cincinnati Magazine says The Cincinnati Enquirer “seems poised to triumph in a journalistic New World Order of mommy-blogs, data collection experts, and citizen journalists.”

The story is heavily inspired by a similar story by Wired Magazine last year: “To Save Themselves, US Newspapers Put Readers to Work.”

Photograph by Baerbel Schmidt for Wired

Jay Leno: “You wouldn’t think something like this would provoke an argument…”

“… Guess they don’t want to rush to judgment on that one in Cincinnati.”

Should be a lively and interesting panel. Co-panelists:

• Lincoln Ware, host, The Lincoln Ware Show, WDBZ-AM
• Kathy Y. Wilson, senior editor, Cincinnati Magazine & author of Your Negro Tour Guide: Truths in Black and White
• Tom McKee, reporter, WCPO-TV (Channel 9)
• Mike Sheehy, associate journalism professor, University of Cincinnati

Where: University of Cincinnati, Tangeman University Center, Room 4002, 600 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH
When: Wednesday, February 27, 7 p.m.

The moderator is my colleague Keith T. Reed, a business reporter for the Enquirer and economics blogger at BET.com.

Sponsors: Cincinnati Association of Black Journalists and the University of Cincinnati’s Journalism Program

An analysis by the local newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, last November found that Deutsche Bank National Trust “owned” 188 homes in Hamilton County, more than anyone except for the federal government, and was taking on nine or 10 newly foreclosed properties a week.

Here’s that story:  Banks taking homes, but city footing bill: Repair, demolition costs add up on foreclosed property.

Attorneys argued before the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday whether the names and addresses of foster care parents should be public record. …

Enquirer reporter Gregory Korte made a public records request shortly after the August 2006 death of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel, seeking an electronic database of all foster homes in Ohio. … The Enquirer reported in March that Hamilton County court officials discovered 27 foster parents had arrest records.

More coverage in the Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, and the Canton Repository.