Mary Ellen Klas, a 2019 Nieman Fellow, is the capital bureau chief for The Miami Herald in Tallahassee, Florida, where she covers government and politics and focuses on enterprise and accountability reporting. She has uncovered deception by the utility industry, misuse of political accounts, cronyism in the governor’s office and administrative neglect of the state’s most fragile populations. She has shared her stories during appearances on NPR, MSNBC, CNN and Fox News and other news programs. Mary Ellen is the recipient of several awards, including the 2018 Sunshine Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Goldsmith Prize from the Harvard Shorenstein Center, and Nieman’s Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism.
The office building four blocks from Florida’s state Capitol carries the same name in bold letters that it boasted when it opened in 1988: Florida Press Center. For the last 30 years, the modest three-story structure with its bland façade … Read more
