Minneapolis’ KARE 11 wins Collier Prize for state government accountability, marking first local broadcast station to take top honor

This year’s winners demonstrate what happens when reporters stay with a story and follow the evidence wherever it leads. Each of these investigations uncovered systemic failures that had gone unchecked for years, and the impact is clear.”

Rick Hirsch, director, Collier Prize for State Government Accountability

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, one of the largest journalism prizes in the nation, has announced KARE 11 in Minneapolis as the first local broadcast station to win the annual prize for its investigation, “Housing Hustle.” Administered by the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, the Collier Prize honors investigations that hold state institutions accountable and lead to meaningful change.

The honor is awarded at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

This year’s first-, second- and third-place recipients were selected from among 110 entries submitted by news organizations from across the U.S.:

• First Place: KARE 11, “Housing Hustle,” by reporter A.J. Lagoe and producer Gary Knox. The investigation exposed a massive fraud scheme within Minneapolis’ Medicaid-funded Housing Stabilization Services (HSS), uncovering forged documents, kickbacks and criminal networks siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded Medicaid payments into fraudulent provider companies for services never provided. The investigation uncovered ethical breaches of a state senator who pushed legislation benefiting HSS providers and state officials who failed to intervene. The reporting drove sweeping state reforms and the largest Medicaid fraud crackdown in Minnesota history, triggering federal raids, indictments and the complete shutdown of the program.
• Second Place: CalMatters, “License to Kill,” by Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler. The investigation revealed how California’s DMV is not required to investigate drivers who cause fatal crashes, exposing a fragmented system in which government officials routinely allowed historically dangerous drivers to remain on the road. As there was no database of vehicular homicide cases to examine, the team spent nine months and nearly $20,000 on public records to construct one, which included more than 3,600 cases filed over five years. The reporting series prompted widespread reforms, including hundreds of license suspensions and a wave of bipartisan legislative proposals aimed at overhauling how the state handles deadly drivers.
• Third Place: Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald, “Hope Florida,” by Lawrence Mower, Alexandra Glorioso and Justin Garcia. The reporting uncovered that the administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis orchestrated the transfer of $10 million in public funds to first lady Casey Desantis’ pet project, the Hope Florida Foundation. Instead of going toward helping Floridians in need, nearly all the money routed to a political committee working to defeat a recreational marijuana initiative. By year’s end, the investigation found the Hope Florida scandal was just the tip of the iceberg, as more than three times the amount of public funds had been funneled to various political campaigns to fuel the governor’s political agenda, prompting a criminal investigation, a grand jury inquest and major political fallout across the state.

This year’s winning investigations reflect countless hours of reporting, often in the face of limited access to public records and resistance from officials. From building original databases from scratch to tracking thousands of pages of financial documents, each project required significant time and patience. These challenges are not unique. Findings from the 2026 UF Collier Prize: State of Accountability Journalism survey report show that investigative journalists nationwide continue to face mounting obstacles in accessing public records and securing interviews with officials, alongside ongoing resource constraints to fund investigative work. Despite these barriers, however, journalists’ commitment to accountability is rising, evidenced by the perseverance of the Collier Prize honorees.

“This year’s winners demonstrate what happens when reporters stay with a story and follow the evidence wherever it leads,” said Rick Hirsch, director of the Collier Prize. “Each of these investigations uncovered systemic failures that had gone unchecked for years, and the impact is clear. Their dedication to uncovering the truth was met with pushback and institutional obstacles faced by accountability journalists across the country, underscoring  that this kind of work is getting harder to do but the importance of this work is as strong as ever.”

The Collier Prize is made possible through a generous endowment from Nathan S. Collier, founder and chairman of The Collier Companies, headquartered in Gainesville, Florida. Collier is a descendant of Peter Fenelon Collier, who in 1888 founded Collier’s, a weekly magazine focused on investigative journalism and publishing stories from renowned journalists such as Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell and Samuel Hopkins Adams.

To learn more about the annual Collier Prize, please visit: https://www.jou.ufl.edu/collier-prize-for-state-government-accountability/

About the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability:

The $25,000 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability at the University of Florida is one of the largest journalism prizes in the nation. It is designed to encourage coverage of state-level government in every state, focusing on investigative and political reporting. The prize, announced annually at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, recognizes the best U.S. professional reporting on state government accountability in any medium or on any platform and is available to any news organization.

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