South Florida journalism took center stage on Thursday night at the 2026 Gerald Loeb Awards, as WLRN News and The Miami Herald captured the prestigious award in the Local Reporting category for "Killer Train," a joint investigative series.
The Gerald Loeb Awards, administered by the UCLA Anderson School of Management and considered the highest honor in American business and financial journalism, celebrated its 2026 winners during a ceremony held at Capitale in New York City on Oct. 8.
The award-winning collaboration between WLRN News and The Miami Herald honored journalists Brittany Wallman, Aaron Leibowitz, Daniel Rivero, Joshua Ceballos, Susan Merriam, Shradha Dinesh and Allison Beck for their deep-dive examination into regional transit safety issues.
READ MORE: Miami Herald, WLRN named finalists for prestigious 2026 Gerald Loeb Awards for Brightline series
Widely recognized as the highest honor in American business journalism, the Loeb Awards celebrate work across 13 competitive categories advanced public understanding of the economy, finance and corporate accountability.
"The foundation and awards were created in 1957 to encourage and recognize reporting on business, finance and the economy that informs and protects investors and the public," UCLA Anderson officials said in announcing the honorees.
The 2026 ceremony, hosted by former CNBC anchor Tyler Mathisen, also honored Stephen Engelberg, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Marcelo Prince, investigations coverage chief at The Wall Street Journal, with the Minard Editor Award.
Other major media outlets recognized during the evening included The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg and CBS News.
Multiple awards
The "Killer Train" project shattered the widely accepted public narrative surrounding the privately operated passenger rail system.
Through an original, exhaustive analysis of federal railroad data, autopsy reports, and police files, the Miami Herald and WLRN team revealed that Brightline was the deadliest major passenger train in the United States, averaging one death every 13 days of service.
Despite promoting itself as a purely privately funded venture, the journalists also discovered that nearly $500 million in public taxpayer dollars had been funneled toward the rail line, even as critical safety installations faced multi-year delays.
The series was among four finalists for the Pulitzer Prize under Local Reporting — the only public radio station to be named to the most coveted prize in journalism. And it has won a national award from Investigative Reporters & Editors, the nation’s most prominent investigative journalism organization. It also won a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award, among the most prestigious in broadcast and digital news.
