Gretchen Morgenson

Heralded The New York Times business reporter Gretchen Morgenson, 47, would like to best be known as a truth teller. The dogged journalist, whose columns have routinely moved markets, and who in her years in journalism has earned a reputation as a giant killer, strives daily to "illuminate the dark corners" of the investment world and uncover "details Wall Street brokers won't tell" their clients.

Ms. Morgenson joined the Times in 1998 as an assistant business and financial editor and writes the weekly "Market Watch" column for the Sunday "Money and Business" section. She also contributes frequently to the daily with stories on a variety of business topics, and her works is often cited in other publications.

Last year she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting "for her trenchant and incisive Wall Street coverage." Her work was cited for narrowing in on the inherent conflicts of interests between financial analysts and their firms, which receive money from the companies that the analysts cover.

The prize, one of the Times' record seven Pulitzers last year, surprised and delighted her. It was the only Pulitzer awarded to the Times last year that wasn't related to coverage of 9-11.

"I was in total shock, and I still can't believe it," she says. "I just thought financial subjects would not reach the level the (Pulitzer) committee would feel is important enough."

Upon receiving the award, she was quoted by the Associated Press as having said: "What was really meaningful was that after the Enron debacle started to unwind and started to take on the elements of a train wreck ... people started to take notice of the things that I and my colleagues here at the paper have been jumping up and down about for years now. It's really nice to have people realize that you were making some sense before the rest of the world caught on."

Ms. Morgenson also received the 2002 Gerald Loeb award for Commentary and was cited for giving "sophisticated investment analysis exposing too-good-to-be-true stocks, analysts who promote them and corporate games." She was also a member of the team that won the Loeb for deadline/beat reporting for the Times' 1998 articles on the near collapse of Long Term Capital Management.

A native of Pennsylvania, Ms. Morgenson began her career at Vogue magazine as an assistant editor in 1976. By the time she left the magazine in 1981, she was a writer and financial columnist. She then joined Dean Witter Reynolds as a stockbroker for 2-years before returning to journalism as a staff writer for Money magazine. After two years there, she joined Forbes where she was an investigative business writer and editor until 1993. After a two-year stint at Worth as executive editor, she was press secretary for Steve Forbes during his unsuccessful bid for president. She then returned to Forbes before joining the Times.

Ms. Morgenson is the author of "Forbes Great Minds of Business," and co-author of "The New York Times Dictionary of Money and Investing," published by Times Books in 2002 and "The Woman's Guide to the Stock Market," published by Harmony Books in 1981.

Covering financial stories remains challenging because the investment world is always changing, she said. "The challenge is to keep up with whatever the next version is, whatever the new investment du jour is."