Miami Herald reporter wins lifetime achievement award for breaking Epstein story

Miami Herald on Sep 17, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

MIAMI — Veteran Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown was given a lifetime achievement award Monday night by IRE, Investigative Reporters and Editors, for her work exposing the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, alongside a selection of the best investigative reporters in the nation, including Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Brown was one of 20 honorees to receive IRE’s Champion of Investigative Journalism Award in New York City at a gala hosted by longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley.

Brown has been with the Miami Herald since 2005. It was her determined reporting in 2018, revisiting the Jeffrey Epstein case, that broke the story open after a decade of dormancy — and that ultimately led federal prosecutors to charge Epstein with fresh crimes, leading to his conviction and incarceration.

IRE is the leading organization in the U.S. supporting and teaching investigative reporting techniques, and Monday night’s event included fellow honorees Paul Steiger, longtime managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and ProPublica, and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times reporters who broke open the #MeToo era with their investigation of Harvey Weinstein.

In introducing Brown, Pelley said she “may well have appeared on your TV screen in the last month. The investigation for which she is best known, published in 2018, continues to grip the nation.

“If it wasn’t for Julie’s work,” Pelley told a room of 500 journalists, “no one else here would know the name Jeffrey Epstein. A decade after Epstein had cut a shockingly lenient plea deal in a 2008 sex crimes case, Julie exposed the outrageous details, and revealed that dozens of Epstein’s victims had been denied justice. As a result, Epstein faced new charges in 2019, and the rest, of course, is history — that is still revealing itself — or not revealing itself — today.”

In months of painstaking reporting, Brown turned the focus back on Epstein’s victims, managing to identify 80 of them, track down 60, and persuade eight to talk for her stories.

Brown continues to chase the Epstein story for the Miami Herald every day.

Among those in the audience and at the lectern at Monday night’s event were Martin Baron, former executive editor of the Washington Post and the Miami Herald; Nancy Barnes, former head of news at National Public Radio and editor of the Boston Globe; and A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times.

In addition to Brown, two other recipients of the IRE Champion awards had strong connections to the Miami Herald — Manny Garcia, who spent 23 years as a reporter and editor at the Herald and at El Nuevo Herald; and Alberto Ibargüen, former publisher of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.

_____