The Collier Spotlight
The Collier Prize for State Government Accountability is initiating a new award, the Collier Spotlight. It’s a quarterly certificate that recognizes impactful reporting on state institutions.
Entries can be nominated by anyone. There is no submission fee. All media platforms are eligible.
The first Collier Spotlight awardee will be named in October, and the deadline to nominate work is Sept. 5. Reporting considered for the first Spotlight recognition must be completed between Jan. 1 and Sept. 1.
Subsequent Collier Spotlight honors will be awarded in January, April and July. Submission deadlines are Dec. 1, March 1, June 1 and Sept. 1.
An advisory board reviews and ranks submissions. The news organization that produced the top ranked work will be awarded a $500 honorarium and a certificate.
To submit a nomination, email collierprize@jou.ufl.edu. Please include the full text of the story you are nominating, either in the body of your email or as an attachment, as well as the URL.
Your submission also should include a contact phone number, the author’s name and organization, the publish date and a pdf of the work if a URL is unavailable. Please make sure the URL can be accessed if the website has a paywall.
Work submitted for the Collier Spotlight is reviewed by our advisory board. They are:
Ted Bridis, the Michael and Linda Connelly senior lecturer in investigative reporting at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. Before joining UF in 2018, Bridis was editor of the Associated Press’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington investigative team and was AP’s leading newsroom expert on security practices for source-protection and on the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and related laws.
David Dahl, former editor of the Maine Monitor, a nonprofit newsroom focused on nonpartisan investigative and explanatory journalism in the state of Maine. Before taking on that role, he was deputy managing editor at the Boston Globe. Before joining the Globe, David worked for 20 years at the St. Petersburg Times covering politics and state government. He was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University and a fellow at the Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program at Columbia University. He’s taught journalism at Emerson College, Boston College and Boston University.
Pam Fine, former managing editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Indianapolis Star, as well as Knight Chair for News, Leadership, and Community at the University of Kansas, where she collaborated on projects with professional news organizations and taught reporting, ethics and other courses. She is past president of the American Society of News Editors, and also played leadership roles at the Chronicle of Higher Education and Report for America.
Manny Garcia, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who has led multiple newsrooms including Houston Landing, the Austin American-Statesman, the Naples Daily News and el Nuevo Herald. He served as senior editor for the Pro-Publica-Texas Tribune investigative initiative, and as standards editor for the USA Today Network. In 2022, the National Press Foundation honored Garcia with the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award.
Robert McClure, former executive editor of InvestigateWest, a nonprofit newsroom he helped found in Seattle with a focus on the environment, public health and government accountability. McClure was a co-finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and winner of the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism. He also was the recipient of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and the Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship.
Monica Richardson, senior vice president at USA Today. In her 30 years as a reporter and Pulitzer Prize winning editor, she led newsrooms in Miami and Atlanta before becoming vice president for local news at the McClatchy Company, which owns the Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Sacramento Bee, Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer and 25 other news organizations. The National Press Foundation named her Benjamin C. Bradley Editor of the Year in 2023.