Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered wins investigative fellowship

Jim Walls, the former head of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s investigative team and one-man tour de force behind local site Atlanta Unfiltered, has been awarded a $1,000 fellowship from the Investigative Reporters and Editors. Other winners include Jonathan Jones and Anna Sussman, founders of backpackjournalist.org.

Walls, who took a buyout from the paper last year, has been producing outstanding work since joining the blogosphere in March. He’s beat his old paper on numerous stories, sifted through hundreds of public documents, and even been known to get snarky a bit here and there. Says Walls:

This truly is an unexpected honor for which I am very grateful. This also is an opportunity to note that Atlanta Unfiltered would be honored to accept your financial donation to help us keep shining a light on the public’s business. Atlantans clearly place a high value on solid, unbiased, local investigative reporting (Unfiltered received 65,000 page views in the last month alone).

You can help him out by visiting his site and kicking in some cash.  Congrats, Jim.