Rachel Louise Snyder wins 2020 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

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Rachel Louise Snyder (Bloomsbury USA)

In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don’t know we’re seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths—that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.

2020 Finalists

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Emily Bazelon (Random House)

Charged follows the story of two people caught up in the criminal justice system: Kevin, a twenty-year-old in Brooklyn who picked up his friend’s gun as the cops burst in and was charged with a serious violent felony, and Noura, a teenage girl in Memphis indicted for the murder of her mother. Bazelon tracks both cases closely and illustrates just how criminal prosecutions can go wrong—and, more important, why they don’t have to. By highlighting a wave of new, reform-minded D.A.s who have been elected to do nothing less than reinvent how their job is done, Bazelon ultimately shows how the criminal justice system can begin working toward a different and profoundly better future.

Jason DeParle (Viking)

When Jason DeParle moved into the Manila slums with Tita Comodas and her family three decades ago, he never imagined his reporting on them would span three generations and turn into the defining chronicle of a new age—the age of global migration. In a monumental book that gives new meaning to "immersion journalism," DeParle paints an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family as they endure years of sacrifice and separation, willing themselves out of shantytown poverty into a new global middle class. At the heart of the story is Tita's daughter, Rosalie. Beating the odds, she struggles through nursing school and works her way across the Middle East until a Texas hospital fulfills her dreams with a job offer in the States.

Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey (Penguin Press)

In 2017, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey began their investigation into Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s treatment of women for the New York Times, powerful men were rarely held accountable for sexual harassment. Victims were often afraid to speak out, or were silenced or dismissed when they did. Even when women reported wrongdoing, predators often continued to ever-higher levels of success, and corporations rarely faced repercussions aside from financial liability. During months of confidential interviews with top actresses, former Weinstein employees, and other sources, Kantor and Twohey unearthed many disturbing and long-buried allegations and wrote the New York Times article that helped break the dam wall and prompt women all around the world to go public with their own stories. But their New York Times article, read by millions, was only the beginning. She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement, draws on remarkable new reporting to tell the full story of their investigation and those who tried to stop it.

Ian Urbina (A. A. Knopf)

There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways — drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely.

See past winners here.

More About the Award

Each year, finalists for the Bernstein Award are selected by a Library Review Committee comprised of New York Public Library staff. Winners are chosen by a separate Bernstein Selection Committee. The award was established through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein, in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein Fealy. The family has also endowed the position of the Helen Bernstein Librarian for Periodicals & Journals, who curates The New York Public Library’s internationally-renowned Periodicals collection—one of the largest collections of past and present newspapers, magazines, and more in the world. The position is currently held by librarian Shannon Keller.

Library Stories from Past Winners

Past winners of the Bernstein Award discuss journalism and democracy.