Allen Siegler named local reporting finalist for 2026 Livingston Awards
By Laura Santhanam | Originally published by Mississippi Today
Allen Siegler, mental health reporter for Mississippi Today, has been selected as a local reporting finalist for the 2026 Livingston Awards by the Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan. He is being recognized for his investigation that tracked how Mississippi spent its opioid settlement funds and how much of that money has been used to prevent overdose deaths.
Siegler is one of 30 journalists under age 35 nationwide who are finalists in the local reporting division. His work was chosen among hundreds of submissions, according to judges.
“The work of this year’s Livingston Awards finalists serves as a reminder of the most consequential issues of the past year, and the ambitious work of journalists to tackle those issues with urgency, depth and nuance,” said Lynette Clemetson, director of the awards and the Wallace House Center for Journalists, in a statement.
In his Black Box series, Siegler found three years after Mississippi received over $124 million in opioid settlement funds, the state had spent less than 1% of that on efforts to prevent more overdose deaths. Local governments in Mississippi are not required to report how the money is spent, but Siegler’s database provided the public with information about how nearly every city and county was spending – or not spending – these dollars.
To create that database, Siegler submitted public records requests from 147 cities, towns and counties. He also found that in some cases, funds were used to pave potholes or make improvements to government buildings. Meanwhile, more than 1,300 Mississippians died of overdoses over the three years since the state received its first settlement payment.
Since his investigation was published in September, Siegler has continued to track how state officials, including Attorney General Lynn Fitch, have chosen to manage the opioid settlements. He covered an advisory council that lawmakers created to advise how to spend this lawsuit money, and how the lawmakers considered the committee’s recommendations.
Livingston Award winners will be announced in New York in June.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
