Staff of Louisville Courier-Journal, for its exemplary initial coverage of a bus crash that claimed 27 lives and its subsequent thorough and effective examination of the causes and implications of the tragedy.
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele of The Philadelphia Inquirer, for their 15-month investigation of rifle shot provisions in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a series that aroused such widespread public indignation that Congress subsequently rejected proposals giving special tax breaks to many politically connected individuals and businesses.
Ron Olshwanger, a free-lance photographer, for a picture published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of a firefighter giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a child pulled from a burning building.