Mark Mueller Journalism

➽ The Pulitzer Prize (team member), 2005: For breaking-news coverage of Gov. James E. McGreevey’s announcement that he is a “gay American” and would resign. Wrote a 1,350-word, co-bylined profile of McGreevey’s lover.

➽ Pulitzer Finalist (team member), 2001: Rewrite man on two stories in breaking-news package about a deadly fire at Seton Hall University. The Star-Ledger’s coverage also won the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Jesse Laventhol Prize and took first place in the spot news category of the National Headliner Awards.

➽ George Polk Award, 2010, with Amy Brittain, for a three-part series on the illicit use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone by New Jersey law enforcement officers and firefighters, who paid for the substances with their taxpayer-funded health insurance. Series was one of three finalists for certificate in the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors contest. SPJ, second place in investigative reporting. Association of Health Care Journalists (national), Third Place, Metro Newspapers

➽ Religion Newswriters Association 

• First place, excellence in religion reporting, metro newspapers, 2017, with Brian Donohue, for “The Fugitive Preacher,” a story that led to the arrest in Central America of a Pentecostal preacher and child predator who fled New Jersey after his conviction. He is now in a New Jersey prison.

• First place, excellence in religion reporting, metro newspapers, 2016, for a series of stories on two predatory priests, one who milked elderly parishioners for cash and one who admitted to me that he raped a 15-year-old boy. The latter story revived a dormant criminal investigation and led to the priest’s indictment. 

• Third place, excellence in religion reporting, metro newspapers, 2014, for revelations of misconduct and cover-up in New Jersey’s Catholic dioceses.

➽ Eddie Award, 2011, national contest administered by Folio magazine: Silver winner for “Death by Train,” a story that appeared in Inside Jersey magazine on the emotional and psychological scars suffered by train engineers when people commit suicide on the tracks.

➽ Silver Gavel Award (team member) 2006: Presented by the American Bar Association for work that furthers the public’s understanding of the legal system. Wrote a 5,200-word piece in a Star-Ledger series about The Patriot Act. The story focused on a controversial provision that authorities invoked to help track down a 13-year-old girl held captive by a pedophile.

➽ National Association of Black Journalists, First Place, Breaking News, 2001: Wrote a 2,000-word mainbar in a package covering New Jersey’s release of 70,000 pages of documents related to racial profiling. The package also took first place for breaking news in the Deadline Club contest sponsored by the New York City SPJ.

➽ Garden State Association of Black Journalists, First Place, Breaking News, 2004: Lead writer on “A Case of Neglect,” about the discovery of a 7-year-old boy’s beaten and emaciated body in the basement of a Newark home.

➽ New Jersey Press Association

• First Place, Online Breaking News (team member), 2016, for coverage of the Bridgegate verdict. Wrote a rapid-reaction story on Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich and co-wrote a story on a juror who said Gov. Chris Christie should have been on trial.

• Third Place, Responsible Journalism, Public Service, 2016, with Brian Donohue, for “The Fugitive Preacher,” a story that led to the arrest in Central America of a Pentecostal preacher and child predator who fled New Jersey after his conviction.

• Third Place, Responsible Journalism, Enterprise, 2015, for a series of stories on two predatory priests, one who milked elderly parishioners for cash and one who admitted to me that he raped a 15-year-old boy.

• Third Place, News Writing Portfolio, 2015, for “Priest accepted big bucks,” “The final days of John Nash” and “Bridgegate indictments: A political vendetta.”

• Second Place, Breaking News (team member), 2015, for “Bridgegate Indictments.” Wrote page 1 mainbar for an extensive package of stories.

• Second place, Online Breaking News (team member), 2015, for “Fire at Edgewater apartment complex.” Wrote a co-bylined, meaty write-thru that put the blaze in historical perspective.

• First Place, Responsible Journalism-Enterprise, 2014, for “How a teacher became a sex offender” and “A Teacher’s Betrayal,” a two-part series on the cycle of sexual abuse.

• First Place, Breaking News (team member), 2014, for the disclosure that a member of the Christie administration had been tied to Bridgegate. My story focused on the harm to the governor’s presidential ambitions.

• Third Place, New Writing Portfolio, 2013, for “Priest works with kids despite lifetime ban,” “A giant of racial and social justice,” and “Body parts dealer got new job — at crematory.”

• Second Place, Breaking News (team member), for “Boardwalk Inferno,” 2013

• First Place, News Writing Portfolio, 2012, for “Law and Disorder,” a two-day series on a troubled NJ police department; “State scrambles to fix a polling system that Sandy left in shambles”; “Funeral industry struggles to cope in dire conditions”

• Third place, Responsible Journalism, Lloyd P. Burns Memorial Award, 2012, for “Law and Disorder”

• Third place (team member), Breaking News, 2012, for “Historic Devastation.” Co-wrote mainbar in coverage of Hurricane Sandy.

• Second Place, Enterprise Reporting, 2009, for “The Wounds Within,” about rising suicides in the military. Six-page, co-bylined package presented through the eyes of three families.

• Third Place, News Writing Portfolio, 2008, for three unrelated stories anchored by “What Happened to This All-American Boy,” about a high school student who took his own life after his baseball coach sexually harassed him.

• Third Place, Feature Writing Portfolio, 2004, for three unrelated stories anchored by “False Notes,” which showed how the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s heralded purchase of Golden Age violins included several fakes.

• First Place, Breaking News, 2003. Lead writer on package about the impending indictments of two former students in the deadly Seton Hall University fire years earlier.

• First Place, Community Reporting, 2002, for “Gangs of New Jersey,” a co-bylined package about the proliferation of street gangs.

• Second Place, Breaking News, 2000: Lead writer on coverage of a plane crash in Newark.

➽ New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists

• First Place, Enterprise/Investigative Reporting, 2016, with Brian Donohue, for “The Fugitive Preacher,” a story that led to the arrest in Central America of a Pentecostal preacher and child predator who fled New Jersey after his conviction. The story also was awarded third place in the public service category. Judges called the piece “an amazing effort that certainly contributed to the capture of a convicted child molester.”

• Third Place, Enterprise/Investigative Reporting, 2016, for “This is an atrocity,” which showed how a man who spent five years in prison for torturing and killing cats in New Jersey is once again collecting the animals in Delaware. Now they’re nowhere to be found. The story highlighted the ineptitude of Delaware’s animal welfare agency. 

• Third Place, Best State or Regional News, 2016, for “Timmy Got Justice,” a package about the conviction of a woman who killed her 5-year-old son 25 years earlier.  Wrote a late-breaking, co-bylined story about tense negotiations in the jury room.

• Third Place, Feature Writing, 2015, for “The final days of John Nash”

• First Place, Breaking News (team member), 2014, for “GWB Bombshell Dents Christie’s 2016 Hopes.”

• Second Place, Breaking News (mainbar writer), 2014, for “An arrest 23 years in the making.”

• Second Place, Best Local News, 2014, for “Edison’s Troubled Police Department.”

• Second Place, Best State or Regional News, 2014, for “New Jersey Catholic Dioceses in Crisis.”

• First Place, Best State or Regional News, 2013, for “A hollow promise on abusive priests”

• Second Place, Local News, 2013, for “Misconduct and Dysfunction in the Edison Police Department”

• First Place, Enterprise/Investigative Reporting, 2012, for “Law and Disorder.”

• Third Place, 2012, Deadline Reporting, for “Life Taken Over a Bike.”

• First Place, Best State or Regional News, 2011, with James Queally, Ryan Hutchins and Susan K. Livio, for “Why did Christiana have to die this way?”

• Second Place, Enterprise Reporting, 2010, for “The Wounds Within.”

• Second Place, Magazine Reporting, 2010, for “Death By Train.”

• Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 2005, for “The Governor’s Secret Life.” Lead writer on a three-person team that detailed how close advisers to former Gov. James E. McGreevey worked to hide his homosexuality.

• Second Place, Breaking News, 2002, for “The Fall of John DeLorean.”

➽ Deadline Club, New York City SPJ

• First Place, Breaking News, 2004: Wrote sidebar in a package about the arrest of a nurse who gave his patients lethal injections.

➽ New England Press Association

• First Place, General News, 1999: Wrote several mainbars and numerous sidebars in the weeks after the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash.

➽ New England Associated Press News Executives Association

• First Place, General News, 1999: Lead reporter and writer on child neglect case.

• Second Place, Spot News, 1997: Lead reporter and writer on coverage of a murder spree.

• First Place, Spot News, 1996: Wrote two stories in package on jailhouse suicide of abortion clinic gunman John Salvi.