Susanne Craig honored in Canada for groundbreaking investigative reporting

Susanne Craig returned to the city where her reporting career began and was recognized in Canada for the kind of document-heavy investigative work that can alter public understanding far beyond one newsroom. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times was honored for a career rooted in Calgary, Alberta, and shaped by the kind of persistence that has become rarer as political disinformation and institutional distrust have spread.

Craig’s path started at the University of Calgary, where she studied political science and wrote for The Gauntlet, the student newspaper. That early training would later define her most consequential work. The University of Calgary says her breakthrough on Donald Trump’s finances began after she was anonymously mailed pages of Trump’s 1995 tax returns during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a tip that grew into an 18-month investigation.

That reporting, shared with David Barstow and Russ Buettner, won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. The Pulitzer Prize Board said the investigation debunked Trump’s claims of being self-made and showed a business empire riddled with tax dodges. It was the sort of reporting that does not rely on rhetoric or spin, but on records, filings and corroboration, and it forced a national conversation about wealth, taxes and political mythology.

Craig’s record extends well beyond one investigation. The Governor General of Canada appointed her a Member of the Order of Canada on November 14, 2023, describing her as a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter with The New York Times who had already been lauded for journalistic excellence at The Globe and Mail and The Wall Street Journal. The University of Calgary says she also won a George Polk Award for the Trump tax investigation and, in Canada, received a National Newspaper Award for a series on insider trading.

Her latest recognition underscores how investigative journalism still serves a civic function that is easy to overlook when headlines are dominated by spectacle. In January 2026, the Canadian Journalism Foundation announced Craig would receive its prestigious CJF Tribute, adding another national honor to a career that has helped clarify how power works, how wealth is hidden and how claims can be tested against the record. For a profession under pressure, Craig’s career remains a reminder that the most durable reporting is often the least glamorous and the most necessary.