The 2023 Izzy Award for “outstanding achievement in independent media” will be shared by The Lever, Mississippi Free Press and journalists Carlos Ballesteros and Liza Gross. The Lever exposes corruption behind the nation’s most powerful institutions, leaders and companies, from dark money influence on the Supreme Court to Medicare privatization. Mississippi Free Press is a women-led team reporting on racial and economic inequities, and covered the ongoing water crisis in Jackson, while fighting for transparency and public access to open records. Carlos Ballesteros’s reporting for Injustice Watch exposed how two Chicago police officers issued arbitrary denials of U visas, which offer a path to citizenship for undocumented victims of crime, leading to a review of all denied U visas in Chicago and plans to rework the city’s visa procedures. Liza Gross of Inside Climate News uncovered how oil companies have bought the ability to dump its toxic wastewater on farms in Kern County, California. An award ceremony for the winners will take place in April.