A series of investigative stories about Brightline’s “Killer Train” by a joint team of reporters from WLRN and the Miami Herald was named as a semifinalist for the coveted and prestigious 2026 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
The project is one of only 30 entries selected from a pool of over 100 high-stakes submissions evaluated for their impact on U.S. public policy and government accountability.
“In the coming weeks, the finalists for the Goldsmith Prize will be announced from this esteemed group, with the winner announced at the Goldsmith Awards Ceremony on April 9,” Goldsmith Award officials said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Goldsmith Awards, which are administered by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, “highlight the essential role of a free press in a healthy democracy” and “honor excellence in journalism that fosters more insightful debate and public understanding about government, politics and public policy in the United States.”
Daniel Rivero (WLRN), Brittany Wallman (Miami Herald), Joshua Ceballos (WLRN), Aaron Leibowitz (Miami Herald), Susan Merriam (Miami Herald), Shradha Dinesh (Miami Herald) and Allison Beck (Miami Herald) were the project’s lead journalists.
WLRN and Miami Herald journalists spent more than a year documenting every death involving Brightline trains since the rail line’s launch seven years ago in Florida. Drawing on autopsy reports and local law enforcement records, reporters discovered that 194 people — so far — have been killed by the fast-speed train, making it the nation’s deadliest major passenger railroad.
READ MORE: Miami Herald, WLRN News Win Honors In Inaugural Esserman-Knight Journalism Prize
The team of reporters analyzed federal railroad data, reviewed federal safety studies, consulted experts and reviewed hundreds of pages of medical examiner and police incident reports to better understand the factors that contributed to each death and to compare Brightline’s safety record against other railroads nationwide.
After the investigation was published and broadcast, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy committed to making the Brightline corridor safer, saying there have been “way too many deaths.”
The Fund for Investigative Journalism provided support for the “Killer Train” series.
The WLRN/Miami Herald "Killer Train" series joins a field of outstanding investigative journalism entries that include stories by The New York Times into President Trump’s self-enrichment; failures within the FDA by ProPublica; and systemic abuse in Mississippi's sheriff departments.
The Miami Herald also was named as a semifinalist for two other joint investigative projects: “Caught in the Crackdown” and “Hope Florida”.
In “Caught in the Crackdown”, a team of Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reporters exposed inhumane conditions and published exclusive reports on the immigrants and citizens whose lives were changed by the state’s crackdown on immigration to support the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
The team included journalists Claire Healy, Ana Claudia Chacin, Shirsho Dasgupta, Churchill Ndonwie, David Goodhue, Ana Ceballos, Ben Wieder, Verónica Egui Brito, and Syra Ortiz Blanes.
In “Hope Florida, Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times joint Tallahassee Bureau reporters Alexandra Glorioso, Lawrence Mower and Justin Garcia, showed how Gov. Ron DeSantis secretly steered more than $35 million in taxpayer dollars from a state settlement involving Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration to fight his political battles. The money went to the Hope Florida Foundation, a nonprofit that was established by the state to help realize Casey DeSantis’ vision to reshape welfare.
The diversion was part of an effort by the DeSantis administration to finance a campaign against two ballot initiatives that year — to legalize recreational marijuana and overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban.
