Miami Herald’s ‘Birth & Betrayal’ wins UF’s Collier Prize for accountability reporting
An investigation by the Miami Herald and ProPublica into a Florida program that broke a promise to provide healthcare to children who suffered catastrophic brain injuries at birth has won a prestigious national award for accountability reporting.
“Birth & Betrayal” — reported and written by Carol Marbin Miller and Daniel Chang with photos and videos by visual journalist Emily Michot — received the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communication’s 2022 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, it was announced Thursday.
The prize, which comes with a $25,000 award, will be formally bestowed at the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner in Washington on Saturday night. Marbin Miller will accept the honor on behalf of the team.
The series looks at a program called the BirthRelated Neurological
Injury Compensation Association. NICA was created in 1988 to provide for the heathcare needs of children born with catastrophic brain injuries, often due to a deprivation of oxygen at the time of delivery. In exchange for shielding OB-GYNS and hospitals from malpractice judgments, the program created a fund to cover the needs of children who suffered often devastating injuries. The fund was to be fed with dues paid by doctors and hospitals.
The investigation found that NICA was habitually depriving families of the most basic needs — despite racking up approximately $1.7 billion in assets.
After the series was published, the Florida Legislature immediately overhauled the program, and NICA’s top administrator and its entire board, dominated by healthcare and insurance executives, was replaced. For the first time, seats on the board were set aside for a parent of a child in NICA and an
Carol Marbin Miller
Daniel Chang
advocate for those with disabilities.
In the series’ aftermath, each family in NICA received an immediate $150,000 stipend from the program — a recognition of the staggering cost of raising a child with severe injuries and of the program’s systemic failure to meet those needs. This year, the Legislature extended that stipend to families whose children died while in NICA.
“Accountability is at the heart of every local news beat at the Miami Herald. Our investigation into Florida’s NICA program showcased an example of the kind of impact that our journalists have in Miami and throughout South Florida,” said Monica Richardson, executive editor of the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.
“The Collier Prize recognizes far and wide that there are guardians and that accountability does exist. To see our work recognized with this award is an incredible honor. But, more importantly, to see how lives changed for our fellow citizens as a result of our journalists’ reporting is the greater reward.”
Others honored by the university were: The Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer, which took second place for its five-part series “Death In the Fastlane,” and ProPublica, which took third for “Welfare States.”
Birth & Betrayal also received Long Island University’s George Polk Award for distinguished journalism and, last week, the National Headliner Award in the Public Service category.
In the National Headline Awards Beat Coverage
Emily Michot category, “Vaccine Inequity in the Americas,” a collaboration of the Miami Herald and the McClatchy Washington Bureau, won first place. The series was produced by Shirsho Dasgupta, Jacqueline Charles, Rosmery Izaguirre, Adriana Brasileiro and Kevin G. Hall.
The National Headliners also honored “The
Pandora Papers,” a global investigation of the offshore financial maneuvers of politicians, oligarchs and criminals. The collaboration involved more than 150 news organizations around the world, including, in the United States, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Washington Post and the Miami Herald. A winner for Online Investigative Reporting for Digital Partnerships, it is the latest of several honors for that project.
Also last week, “House of Cards,” the Miami Herald and McClatchy’s three-dimensional interactive highlighting construction flaws in Champlain
Towers South, was honored by the Webby Awards. The Surfside condo partially collapsed in the predawn hours of June 24, 2021, killing 98 people.
In compelling fashion, the interactive depicted the last minutes of the tower through the eyes of those who survived.
Called the “Oscars of the Internet” by The New York Times, the Webbys honor digital excellence and are bestowed by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. “House of Cards” was voted the “People’s Voice Winner” in the Website and Mobile Sites category for Best Individual Editorial Feature/Media Company, which recognizes enhanced articles with “innovative interaction design components and multimedia storytelling elements.”
“House of Cards” was produced by a team of Sarah Blaskey, Sohail Al-Jamea, Eduardo M. Alvarez, Rachel Handley, David Newcomb, Aaron Albright, Aaron Leibowitz, Ben Conarck, Nicholas Nehamas and Ana Claudia Chacin. It was edited by Casey Frank, senior editor for investigations and enterprise, and Mary Behne.
Carli Teproff: 305-376-3587, @cteproff