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There are so many good local journalism stories out of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes ([link removed]) , including how The Minnesota Star Tribune banded together to cover a church shooting ([link removed]) , the San Francisco Chronicle’s work covering insurance issues after the California fires ([link removed]) that earned a local newsroom an explanatory prize for the first time in eight years, and powerful work from Texas Monthly and CT Mirror.
But my favorite, because it’s been a long time coming, is the special citation given to Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown for “her groundbreaking reporting in 2017 and 2018 ([link removed]) that exposed Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic abuse of young women, the justice system that protected him, and, over time, his powerful network of associates and enablers. Her Perversion of Justice series, published nearly a decade ago, revealed how prosecutors shielded Epstein from federal sex trafficking charges when he was first accused of abusing young women. She went on to document and give voice to the scores of victims who had been groomed and abused by him and others in his circle. Her work, and the release of the government’s Epstein files, continue to reverberate around the world.”
It’s.
About.
Time.
I got to interview Brown back in 2019, after her reporting finally led to Epstein’s arrest ([link removed]) .
She said then: “I also think that it’s very difficult when you get a big splash and you get attention and it kind of drops off the media radar. What I tried to do since the story ran and got all that attention was to keep hounding away at the story. I didn’t give up on it. It’s sometimes easy to walk away and just let things happen, but I just felt that I had to keep pursuing it and not let the powers that be, so to speak — the law enforcement people, the people in government — forget that these women were out there, and they’re talking and they want to tell their story and they want justice.”
Brown is still at it ([link removed]) .
Her former editor, Aminda Marqués González, told the Miami Herald ([link removed]) that Brown’s work is “the most consequential journalism since Watergate.”

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* In Poynter, read how El Tímpano “built a sustainable model serving marginalized communities.” ([link removed])
* And check out El ([link removed]) Tímpano's ([link removed]) Civic Partnerships Playbook ([link removed]) .

That’s it for me. Have you heard the term Maycember ([link removed]) ? It’s all the stuff that happens at the end of the school year, including testing, celebrations and projects, minus the presents. 🫠


Kristen
Kristen Hare
Faculty
The Poynter Institute
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