What awards has Steven Monacelli won and which organizations granted them?
Executive summary
Steven Monacelli’s publicly reported honors chiefly consist of a journalism prize — the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award — and a local accolade naming him “Best Reporter of 2025” by D Magazine, both of which he and multiple outlets list on biographical pages [1] [2] [3] [4]. A separate 2015 “Certificate of Congressional Recognition” tied to being named a top public accounting professional appears on a corporate biography that may concern a different Steven Monacelli, and the public record provided does not resolve whether that accounting honor belongs to the same person who is the investigative journalist [5] [6].
1. The journalism awards explicitly claimed: name and how they’re described
Monacelli’s personal website and profiles state that he received the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award for work that “revealed the identities of far‑right extremists, including government employees,” and they specify the recognition as the Al Neuharth award in 2025 [1] [2]. Separately, those same biographical pages and listings of local honors say he was named “Best Reporter of 2025” by D Magazine, a locally focused prize that appears in D Magazine’s Best of Big D coverage and his D Magazine author profile [1] [4] [7]. A Patreon post by Monacelli’s account frames the Al Neuharth prize as the “Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, Small Newsroom category,” which adds categorical detail to the claim [3].
2. Where these claims appear and how consistent the record is
The claims about the Al Neuharth award and the D Magazine recognition are present across multiple independent listings: Monacelli’s own about page, his Muck Rack and Texas Observer bios, and an archived Patreon post where he discusses winning the Al Neuharth award and emphasizes it came “with no financial reward” [1] [8] [2] [3] [9]. D Magazine’s site includes him among its Best of Big D winners and hosts a writer page for him that aligns with the “Best Reporter” designation [4] [7]. These converging references lend corroboration that those two journalism honors are being publicly attributed to him by both his own outlets and local press listings [1] [2] [4].
3. The 2015 Certificate of Congressional Recognition and potential identity ambiguity
A Withum corporate biography lists a “Certificate of Congressional Recognition” in 2015 awarded in honor of being named one of the “Top Public Accounting Professionals for Rhode Island,” which it attributes to a Steven Monacelli [5]. That entry situates the recipient as an accounting professional working with cannabis-industry clients and describes career details that do not appear on the investigative journalist’s bios, creating a plausible risk that the Withum entry refers to a different person with the same name [5] [6]. The journalist’s own pages and media profiles emphasize investigative reporting on extremism and disinformation and do not mention that 2015 accounting recognition, and the available sources do not provide definitive evidence tying the Withum listing to the Dallas‑based journalist [1] [6] [10].
4. What the public record confirms, and what it does not
The publicly available materials provided here confirm that Steven Monacelli is credited with the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award (described in some sources as the small‑newsroom category) and with being named D Magazine’s Best Reporter of 2025, based on his own site, Muck Rack/Texas Observer bios, Patreon commentary, and D Magazine listings [1] [8] [2] [3] [4] [7]. The Certificate of Congressional Recognition for a top Rhode Island accounting professional is documented in a Withum profile for a Steven Monacelli but the sources supplied do not establish that the accountant and the journalist are the same individual, so that honor should be treated as ambiguous until corroborating evidence links the two records [5] [6].