Democracy Now!’s own co-host Juan Gonzalez has won a George Polk Award for his columns in the New York Daily News exposing the scandal behind Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to create a new computerized payroll system called CityTime. Gonzalez’s reporting helped lead to the federal indictment of four consultants and two associates on charges that they orchestrated a fraud that cost city taxpayers more than $80 million. One of seven people so far arrested in the fraud pleaded guilty two weeks ago and is cooperating. The director of New York City’s Office of Payroll has been forced to resign. So far, federal agents have recovered more than $27 million in cash from dozens of bank accounts of dummy companies connected to the scheme. Gonzalez also won a Polk Award in 1998. Other winners this year include Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, for his article that led to the dismissal of former U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal who led the war in Afghanistan; the Washington Post's Dana Priest and Bill Arkin, for their investigation called “Top Secret America”; and ProPublica, PBS's Frontline and the Times-Picayune for their work exposing how New Orleans police officers shot dead at least four people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The George Polk Career Award has been given to Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media.