Pulitzer Prizes honor Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown and Brightline investigation

Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown on Monday was honored by the Pulitzer Prize Board for her groundbreaking and impactful investigation into sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the people and institutions that enabled him to abuse girls for decades.

The 2026 Pulitzer Prizes also recognized the Miami Herald and WLRN journalists as finalists in the Local Reporting category for their joint investigation into the systemic failures that made Florida’s Brightline the deadliest major passenger train in the nation.

“I could not be more proud of how hard our journalists work to bring such meaningful revelations to our community, or more grateful to have their accomplishments recognized by the Pulitzer board,” said Alex Mena, executive editor of the Miami Herald/el Nuevo Herald. “Both of these projects required extensive digging and drove positive change in our community and beyond.”

Brown’s special citation from the Pulitzer board is unique in that it recognizes not only her work from the past year, but the totality of her journalistic career and in particular her revelations about Epstein’s global sex-trafficking network and the people who protected him. Her explosive Epstein investigation, Perversion of Justice, ricocheted across the globe when it was published in 2018. Today, the so‑called Epstein Files have become an indispensable resource for journalists, researchers and investigators, revealing the scope of Epstein’s abuses, his connections to powerful figures, and the institutional breakdowns that allowed his crimes to persist.

Brown seized on a story and angle no other journalist saw and told that story in a way no other journalist had. She gave voice to Epstein’s victims and deep, relentless scrutiny to the making of a sweetheart deal that allowed a global sex-trafficking network to persist.

Her reporting centered on telling the stories of survivors whose allegations had been forgotten or ignored, and she worked patiently, sensitively to earn the trust of women wounded by Epstein. She documented how Epstein recruited vulnerable teenage girls, some as young as 14, at his South Florida mansion, grooming and paying them for sex and pressuring them to recruit other teens. These girls, now women, told Brown of cycles of exploitation at Epstein’s homes in Palm Beach, New York, New Mexico and on his private Caribbean island. Girls were scheduled, transported and isolated, with employees and close associates facilitating access and secrecy.

Brown wondered how such an expansive operation could flourish so openly, and how, given the evidence, Epstein got such a slap on the wrist in his first pass through the criminal court system. Her work exposed how Epstein escaped meaningful federal accountability for years, in part through a 2008 plea deal arranged by then-Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who President Donald Trump later elevated to secretary of labor. The deal allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges, serve minimal jail time and shield potential co‑conspirators.

Over months she documented detailed victim accounts and corroborated them by reviewing thousands of pages of sealed or overlooked police reports and court records, revealing patterns that had gone unexamined for years. Despite legal threats and resistance from Epstein’s lawyers, she pursued the story for more than two years, continuing to press for records and accountability.

Brown’s reporting helped revive federal scrutiny of Epstein. After the Herald published her series, Acosta resigned as labor secretary, Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges, his accomplice Ghislane Maxwell was prosecuted and convicted, and Epstein victims won hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

That work began under then-Executive Editor Aminda Marques Gonzalez and is now overseen by Mena, who praised the reporting as “fearless, meticulous and driven by a commitment to give voice to people who were ignored for far too long.”

Marques called Brown’s work “the most consequential journalism since Watergate.”

Despite the impact of Brown’s reporting on Epstein, her work was not recognized by the Pulitzer board in 2018, when her project was published, or in 2019, when its staggering impact became clear.

Brown credited the award to the survivors who trusted her. “This honor belongs to the women who trusted us with their stories,” she said. “Their voices made clear what had been hidden in plain sight, and they are the reason this work mattered.”

Brown worked closely on the project with visual journalist Emily Michot and then-Investigations Editor Casey Frank.

“We just had no idea when we went into it that anything of this magnitude would come out of it … that there was this whole wide world of evil out there,” said Michot, now retired. “Where would we be if (Brown) hadn’t done this, and if the Herald hadn’t supported this?”

Killer Train

The Miami Herald and WLRN’s investigation into Brightline’s astonishing fatality rates was likewise impactful, immediately triggering the release of $42 million to improve safety along the tracks and challenging the narrative the victims were to blame, and nothing could be done.

The Killer Train investigation revealed that Brightline — a privately operated, higher-speed train promoted as a model for the future of American rail — has become the deadliest major passenger train in the United States. Since 2017, nearly 200 people have been killed by Brightline trains. That’s an average of one death every 13 days of service.

This team’s reporting proved false the widely accepted Brightline narrative that most of the dead were suicidal, or were drivers evading downed gates. Through a deep, original analysis of federal data for every railroad in the country, the Herald and WLRN shed light on multiple factors that make Brightline uniquely dangerous. They also found that, despite the death toll — and partly because of it — nearly $500 million in taxpayer funding has gone toward Brightline, undermining the company’s promise to be entirely privately funded. At the same time, critical safety measures have been delayed for years.

The team behind the Brightline investigation:

• Investigative Reporter Brittany Wallman, Miami Herald
• Local Government Reporter Aaron Leibowitz, Miami Herald
• Visual Journalist Matias J. Ocner, Miami Herald
• Investigative Reporter Daniel Rivero, WLRN
• Local Government Accountability Reporter Joshua Ceballos, WLRN
• Data Journalist Shradha Dinesh, McClatchy Media
• Allison Beck, Ida B. Wells Society intern and Coral Springs News reporter
• Data/Visual Journalist Susan Merriam, McClatchy Media
• Director of Editorial Project Experiences David Newcomb, McClatchy Media
• 3-D Modeling, Animation and Video Journalist Sohail Al-Jamea, McClatchy Media
• Visual Journalist Rachel Handley, McClatchy Media
• Photo Editor David Santiago, Miami Herald
• Copy Editor John Parkhurst, Miami Herald
• Audience & Engagement Producer Carolina Zamora, Miami Herald
• Audience & Engagement Producer Kevin Scott, Miami Herald
• Director of Enterprise Journalism Jessica Bakeman, WLRN
• City Editor Jessica Lipscomb, Miami Herald
• Investigations Editor Trish Wilson Belli, Miami Herald

Family members of those killed by Brightline trains had told us that one of their most painful experiences was enduring the public mocking of their loved ones’ deaths. After publication, readers reached out with thanks.

One mother expressed gratitude that, for the first time, someone portrayed her 25-year-old son and the others who died as real people, not statistics or “punchlines.” She wrote: “Your work matters. It matters to grieving families like mine, and it matters to the broader conversation about accountability, safety, and empathy.”

Another reader spotted a missing relative’s name in a published memorial - the first accurate roster of the dead. His aunt had been struck by a Brightline train while riding her bicycle, but her death was not reported by local media, and her family had searched for her in vain for more than two years. “You don’t know how much this means to my family,” he wrote.

2026 Pulitzer Prize winners

The full list of 2026 Pulitzer Prize winners for journalism includes:

• Public Service: The Washington Post
• Breaking News Reporting: Staff of The Minnesota Star Tribune
• Investigative Reporting: Staff of The New York Times
• Explanatory Reporting: Susie Neilson, Megan Fan Munce and Sara DiNatale of the San Francisco Chronicle
• Beat Reporting: Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham of Reuters
• Local Reporting: Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk of The Connecticut Mirror and Sophie Chou and Haru Coryne of ProPublica; and Staff of the Chicago Tribune
• National Reporting: Staff of Reuters, notably Ned Parker, Linda So, Peter Eisler and Mike Spector
• International Reporting: Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Yael Grauer, contributor, of Associated Press
• Feature Writing: Aaron Parsley of Texas Monthly
• Criticism: Mark Lamster of The Dallas Morning News
• Opinion Writing: M. Gessen of The New York Times
• Illustrated Reporting and Commentary: Anand RK and Suparna Sharma, contributors, and Natalie Obiko Pearson of Bloomberg
• Breaking News Photography: Saher Alghorra, contributor, The New York Times
• Feature Photography: Jahi Chikwendiu of The Washington Post
• Audio Reporting: Staff of Pablo Torre Finds Out

This story was originally published May 4, 2026 at 3:42 PM.