Six journalists from the South Florida Sun Sentinel have won honors for investigative and public service reporting in a regional media competition called the Esserman-Knight Journalism Awards.
The Sun Sentinel’s reports focused on how the use of police K-9s veered toward the pursuit of Black suspects in theft cases, as well as how the Surfside condo collapse in June of last year exposed safety vulnerabilities in older high-rises around the region.
The annual competition, now in its third year, is sponsored by the Esserman Family Fund for Investigative Journalism and supported by the Miami-based Knight Foundation. The awards program is designed to encourage South Florida reporters “whose work has the power to change laws and lives,” according to the sponsors’ website.
“The Sun Sentinel is grateful to the Esserman family and the Knight Foundation for recognizing and rewarding investigative journalism in South Florida,” said Julie Anderson, the Sun Sentinel’s editor-in-chief. “We do the work as a service to the community, but it’s nice that they value and promote strong journalism.”
Both of the newspaper’s awards were honorable mentions that resulted in cash payments of $1,000 each.
A Miami Herald team took first place for its series on Surfside: “House of Cards, How decades of problems converged the night Champlain Towers fell.” The series received a $10,000 cash award.
WLRN public radio reporter Daniel Rivero won second place and a $5,000 award for his “Tallahassee Takeover” series on state government.
Other honorable mentions went to Herald reporter Jaqueline Charles for her coverage of the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moises; and to Herald reporter Mary Ellen Klas for a series on utility rates charged by FPL.
This year’s program attracted 48 entries from South Florida media including newspapers, online, radio, television and podcasts, according to the sponsors. The selection committee included professional journalists and community leaders, Esserman family members and the Knight Foundation’s journalism program staff.
K-9 use gone awry
In the police-related stories, the Sun Sentinel team of Brittany Wallman, Mario Ariza and Megan O’Matz investigated how police deployed dogs when pursuing suspects.
Their main story was entitled “The Hunted: Police K-9s are meant to stop dangerous felons. They’re more often unleashed on Black people accused of stealing.”
A second story described how the newspaper’s team investigated the issue.
How Surfside exposed condo risks
In their Surfside coverage, the Sun Sentinel team of Spencer Norris, Brittany Wallman, Mario Ariza, Lisa J. Huriash and Susannah Bryan investigated how the weak enforcement of safety regulations has made South Florida condo complexes vulnerable to weaknesses such as the ones that befell the Surfside building.
A second story focused on a statewide law firm that opposed certain condo reforms. A third article covered how affiliates of a banned construction firm involved in the fatal pedestrian bridge collapse at Florida International University are still receiving payments from the state of Florida.
The stories were entitled:
Investigation: Lax enforcement leaves South Florida condos at risk, Surfside catastrophe reveals.
Becker & Poliakoff law firm the ‘nemesis’ of condo safety reformers.
U.S. bans company behind the fatal FIU bridge collapse. Florida is still paying its affiliates millions.
