The Miami Herald and WLRN on Saturday night took the top honor at the 2026 Sunshine State Awards, winning the A-Mark Prize for Investigative Reporting for their joint series exposing critical safety issues along Florida’s Brightline rail corridor.
Presented annually by SPJ Florida, the Sunshine State Awards honor the region’s best journalism from the previous year. This year's award ceremony was held at ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale.
The competition is open to professional journalists across Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as out-of-state journalists reporting on Florida, along with high school and college student entrants.
The premier honor of the competition, the A-Mark Prize for Investigative Reporting, was introduced in 2025 and is supported by a grant from the A-Mark Foundation. The award recognizes reporting that holds power accountable, promotes transparency, and empowers citizens to make informed decisions.
The investigative series — titled "Killer Train" — was reported by the Miami Herald’s Brittany Wallman, Aaron Leibowitz, Susan Merriam, Shradha Dinesh, and Allison Beck, and WLRN’s Daniel Rivero and Joshua Ceballos. It included a multimedia web version and a podcast with several episodes.
Through an exhaustive analysis of federal railroad data, police records, and autopsy reports, the cross-newsroom team revealed that Brightline operated as the deadliest major passenger rail system in the United States, averaging one death for every 13 days of service.
The project also uncovered that despite marketing itself as a privately financed venture, nearly $500 million in public taxpayer funds went into the system even as key safety installations faced years of delays.
As the first-place winner of the A-Mark Prize, the reporting team receives a $5,000 cash prize, along with $2,500 awarded to the newsrooms. Second and third-place investigative winners were also recognized with cash prizes for both entrants and their newsrooms.
Second place went to Michael Barfield & Derek Gilliam, of Suncoast Searchlight and Florida Trident, for their series "Sarasota County Stormwater Investigation."
Third Place was awarded to Nichole Manna and Casey Frank, of The Florida Trib, for their series "Cold-Blooded": How a Florida prosecutor fixed a 'weak' case using a liar and 3 jailhouse snitches to send a man to Death Row.
View the full list of 2026 winners.
Entries across all categories were evaluated by active and retired professional journalists and educators from outside Florida to ensure an impartial judging process. Finalists were revealed in mid-June ahead of Saturday night's awards presentation.
The Society of Professional Journalism Florida Pro Chapter teamed up with the South Florida chapters of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists to present this year's Sunshine State Awards
The A-Mark Prize adds to a long list of journalism awards for the jointly produced series by the Miami Herald and WLRN, South Florida's NPR affiliate.
The series has been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting and the Gerald Loeb Awards for Business Journalism, while also earning a national award from Investigative Reporters & Editors and a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award.
