In 2022, journalism by the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald changed policy and saved lives
Stories about FPL-funded efforts to sway Florida elections, the turmoil following the assassination of Haiti’s president and Hurricane Ian’s destructive effects on the state’s Gulf Coast were among the highlights of journalism by the Miami Herald and sister publication el Nuevo Herald in 2022, according to a report released by the media company.
The report details the Herald’s daily and investigative reporting on its community and its backyard in the Caribbean and Latin America, and how its stories have affected lives, helped changed policy and hold the powerful accountable.
“Key to our success is our focus on local journalism that matters. This is where we have our greatest impact,” Herald Executive Editor Monica Richardson wrote in the introduction to the report. ”Our journalism has truly left a mark — transforming communities and even saving lives.”
Mainstream newspaper and media companies ranging from the Herald to the Tampa Bay Times and the Detroit Free Press, among others, are releasing reports that highlight their community and national impact in an increasingly crowded news environment in which the critical role played by traditional outlets can sometimes be overshadowed.
The 2022 report is the second published by the Herald, but the first to be made widely available, company executives said.
Nonprofit groups routinely release impact reports to highlight their accomplishments, especially for the donors who support their work. The Herald, which is owned by McClatchy, is a for-profit enterprise, but has in recent years successfully attracted foundation grants to support reporting positions and special projects.
The Herald impact report notes initiatives supported by the nonprofit Miami Herald Impact Journalism Fund at the Miami Foundation, with partners such as the Esserman Family Fund, the Jorge M. Perez Family Foundation, the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Foundation, the Knight Foundation and Florida International University’s School of Communication and Journalism, helped the newspaper expand local coverage of climate change, the arts, misinformation in elections and investigative reporting. The Herald retains full editorial control over this coverage.
The report also underscores the Herald’s coverage of everyday life, too — from sports to food and dining, arts and recreation, and local business — in print, online and in podcasts and newsletters. The report says the company’s online sites, miamiherald.com, Miami.com and elnuevoherald.com, receive 13.7 million unique visitors every month.
It also details innovative and award-winning news coverage from previous years that bore fruit in 2022:
▪ The sentencing of Ghislaine Maxwell to 20 years in prison for her role in assisting sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, whose lenient treatment by the justice system and his victims’ stories were detailed in the Herald’s 2018 Perversion of Justice series.
▪ Extensive legislative reforms to Florida’s condo laws following the 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, which Herald coverage kept front and center as it hired engineers to analyze possible causes and wrote stories exposing gaps in building and condo regulations. The Herald’s coverage of the collapse won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.
▪ The Florida Legislature’s overhaul of the state NICA program — Neurological Injury Compensation Association — which failed in its mission to provide healthcare coverage for children born with brain damage, the subject of the Herald’s 2021 series Birth and Betrayal.
