Regional, national awards for News-Press / Naples Daily News reporting on Florida farmworker families during COVID

Fort Myers News-Press
·4 min read

Two journalists from The News-Press / Naples Daily News have received regional and national awards for work that revealed the extreme inequities faced by Florida’s farmworker families during the pandemic through data-based reporting, deep storytelling and documentary video. 

A couple of brothers talk to the Healthcare Network workers, as they canvas different neighborhoods in Immokalee. They took some masks and hand sanitizer and information for the up coming pop up vaccine clinic. They were providing, water, masks, hand sanitizer and information on the next vaccine pop up. After Doctors Without Borders departed a few months into the pandemic it left the job in local hands. Healthcare Network in Immokolee secured a $1.2-million federal grant to start a team of doctors and nurses and deliver grassroots outreach unlike the local clinic had ever provided. They now spend the week canvassing neighborhoods to provide door-to-door education on testing and vaccines. They rotate through testing events and vaccine events. Once someone has tested positive they will deliver food and do home check ups on the ill people. This team has dug in and is slowly gaining the trust of the people of this small town, mostly because they speak their languages. Many on the team are bi-lingual, opening the door for many in the community to ask questions and have a better understanding of the answers.

Investigative and enterprise journalist Janine Zeitlin won first place for public affairs reporting for all print dailies in the annual Green Eyeshade Awards, which recognize the best journalism in the southeastern United States. Her work, published throughout 2021, revealed state government inaction in providing critical health care resources to farmworkers even as COVID-19 ravaged rural communities. The stories relied on dozens of data and records requests.

The series included a two-part education-focused package in June 2021 that examined inequities faced by Florida’s migrant students during the pandemic. That reporting, which included documentary-style videos, picked up a separate Green Eyeshade award: third place for non-deadline reporting for Zeitlin and visual journalist Andrea Melendez. The awards are presented by the Society of Professional Journalists.

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The reporting was edited by Florida investigations editor Laura Greanias and supported by a USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism data fellowship.

Other key contributors to the project were digital producers Chris Bridges and Oscar Santiago Torres, journalist Dan DeLuca and former digital planner Megan Kearney.

The same journalism also received national awards.

Zeitlin and Melendez received second place for public health reporting for small outlets in the Association of Health Care Journalists’ 2021 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, which recognize the best health reporting in print, broadcast and online media.

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Zeitlin was also a finalist for public service reporting (smaller newsrooms) in the Education Writers Association’s 2021 National Awards for Education Reporting, recognizing the top education journalism in the United States.

The judges cited Melendez’s "excellent use of photography and video to bring readers into the daily lives of the story’s subjects and to elevate their voices." And they lauded Zeitlin for her data journalism:

"By entrepreneurially building her own database, reporter Janine Zeitlin did what state and local education officials probably should have been doing all along: Identifying whether particularly vulnerable cohorts of students were ‘falling through the cracks’ as the pandemic strained the resources of public schools. The investment that Zeitlin made in building relationships with her sources is obvious, and it pays off in a nuanced and empathetic portrayal of the challenges farmworker families face."

Healthcare Network workers, Osman Lopez Hernandez, hands a woman a packet of masks. She was vaccinated already. The team was canvasing different neighborhoods in Immokalee. They were providing, water, masks, hand sanitizer and information on the next vaccine pop up. After Doctors Without Borders departed a few months into the pandemic it left the job in local hands. Healthcare Network in Immokolee secured a $1.2-million federal grant to start a team of doctors and nurses and deliver grassroots outreach unlike the local clinic had ever provided. They now spend the week canvassing neighborhoods to provide door-to-door education on testing and vaccines. They rotate through testing events and vaccine events. Once someone has tested positive they will deliver food and do home check ups on the ill people. This team has dug in and is slowly gaining the trust of the people of this small town, mostly because they speak their languages. Many on the team are bi-lingual, opening the door for many in the community to ask questions and have a better understanding of the answers.

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Zeitlin and Melendez made frequent trips to large farmworker communities across the state, including Immokalee. To conduct those interviews, Zeitlin brought Spanish fluency and knowledge gained from 15 years with the Southwest Florida news sites as a social justice reporter. Several stories were published in Spanish. Documentary videos and first-person narratives were also in Spanish.

The journalists also spent months shadowing the efforts of a community-based solution that emerged to address health inequities facing farmworkers. That reporting was included in a national USA TODAY project, Justice in My Town.

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"Janine is committed to telling deeply impactful stories, and she brings her excellent storytelling skills and passionate commitment to the community to all that she does," said Wendy Fullerton Powell, executive editor of the Naples Daily News and deputy regional editor for the USA TODAY Network - Florida, Southwest Region. "This excellent work by Janine and Andrea is another example of our overall commitment to great journalism."

The News-Press and Naples Daily News are part of the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida, which comprises 19 daily newspapers. Network journalists across the state were honored in nine categories in the Green Eyeshade awards, including first place in investigative reporting (small dailies) for a series of stories on vaccine favoritism by Zac Anderson and Josh Salman.

One of the investigations, which included reporting from nine other network reporters and data journalists, found at least 150 private housing communities in Florida landed vaccine pop-ups or priority access to vaccines, including yacht, golf and country clubs. At least a handful were politically connected to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Three reporters from The News-Press / Naples Daily News — Dan DeLuca, Liz Freeman and Frank Gluck — contributed to that investigation, which was edited by Greanias.

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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Green Eyeshade, national awards for News-Press, Naples Daily News journalists