UF’s College of Journalism hosted the inaugural Collier Prize Symposium on State Government Accountability on Thursday, highlighting the importance of local and state-level reporting, along with a focus on financing those efforts.  

The Collier Prize started in 2019 through the support of Nathan Collier, CEO of The Collier Companies in Gainesville. The prize is awarded annually at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and its $25,000 first-place award is the largest for state accountability journalism. 

Collier’s family started Collier’s Magazine in the late 1800s and ran impactful investigative journalism pieces through the 1900s under the management of the family before selling the publication.  

“I’ve always had a fondness for investigative journalism because nothing inflames my passion more than people who betray public trust, and journalists who shine the light in the dark corners of our society do good work,” Collier said. “And folks, publicity is the deterrent effect.” 

The symposium featured four sessions and included a keynote speech from Maribel Perez Wadsworth, president and CEO of the John S. and James L Knight Foundation. The foundation provides philanthropic support for news outlets across the nation. Wadsworth said the foundation has doubled its investment in journalism to $300 million over five years. 

Wadsworth bookended her speech by saying that journalism is an optimistic profession, believing problems can be solved and systems improved. 

“Journalism truly is an act of optimism,” Wadsworth said. “It’s fundamentally a belief that the public, armed with truth, will demand solutions, that things can get better and that positive change and progress will come.” 

The 2025 Collier Prize winners demonstrated how exposing hidden realities can change the systems in place.  

Illinois Answers Project received third place for Strapped Down: “Restraint Chairs in Illinois’ Jails.” The series included more than 10 stories that chronicled how jails in the state violated their own policies and manufacturer guidelines regarding restraint chairs.  

The investigation uncovered inmates left in the chairs over the weekend and the use of shock cuffs while in the chairs.  

Grace Hauck, one of the reporters involved, said Illinois now cites jails for failing to report uses of the restraint chairs. Multiple sheriffs and jail administrators publicly promised changes as a result.  

A yearlong investigation from NBC News earned second place for “Dealing the Dead.” The investigation found that Texas counties had struck a deal to give unclaimed bodies from the coroner’s office to a university medical center for research. That medical center was then selling the body parts to research companies.  

NBC’s Mike Hixenbaugh told symposium attendees that county officials failed to adequately look for families to claim the bodies. Some of the deceased individuals had families actively looking for them in other jurisdictions.  

As the investigation was published, the deal between the county and the medical center was terminated, and several people were fired, Hixenbaugh said. 

AP News won first place for “Prison to Plate,” a series showing how prison labor is exploited to feed Americans and generate profit by large corporations.  

Reporters Robin McDowell and Margie Mason said not a lot had changed since the investigation dropped, but Mason said pressure has mounted. Their previous work in Southeast Asia took years to see changes and continues to impact the conversations around the seafood and palm oil industry.  

It could be years before this series also produces institutional changes, Mason said.  

The symposium also contrasted local and state reporting with national coverage that dominates the news diet of most Americans.  

Karen Rundlet, CEO and executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit News, said most Americans are informed nationally, but we all live locally. With local newsrooms, leaders, advocates and critics talk face to face with reporters, and everyone lives in the same community, toning down spicier rhetoric.  

“I think that we’re not as cohesive; the research shows that,” Rundlet said. “Voter turnout is lower. We’re less informed, and we’re being informed nationally, so we’re more polarized.” 

Chris Fitzsimon, CEO of States Newsroom, said the county needs investigative reporting like the Collier Prize winners more than ever. But he added that it also needs daily local reporting more than ever.  

“Reporting isn’t just uncovering things,” Fitzsimon said. “It’s keeping people up to date while things are happening and preventing a lot of the things that we see that are happening.” 

As local and state news has shrunk in the past couple of decades, Alison Bethel, chief content officer at State Affairs, said journalism has become more opaque to the public. She noted that most citizens have never met a journalist, and the image that comes to mind is someone causing trouble. 

“Media literacy is a big problem,” Bethel said. “Most people think not so much of local media, but national. And they judge all of us by what they see on, mostly, television.” 

Rick Hirsch, director of the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, said the date for the next symposium is already set. He said UF is also building around the prize, adding a monthly newsletter and quarterly spotlight of quality journalism.  

The prize and symposium were recently endowed with $8 million by Collier to keep both running into the future.