WUFT’s Rose Schnabel and Miami Herald’s ‘Built on Sand’ Share the 2026 Waldo Proffitt Award

Gainesville, Florida — The University of Florida has announced that WUFT Report for America corps member Rose Schnabel is a recipient of the 2026 Waldo Proffitt Award for Outstanding Environmental Journalism, one of Florida’s premier environmental reporting honours. She shared this year’s award with the Miami Herald’s “Built on Sand” investigative series. The announcement was made on 2 October 2026, and Schnabel will be formally recognised at an award presentation hosted by the Zimmerman School on 20 October.

Why the 2026 Waldo Proffitt Award went to Rose Schnabel

Judges selected Schnabel’s body of work focused on rural environmental coverage for its reporting on inequities affecting communities in North Central Florida. The award-winning collection included reporting on Florida’s pine straw industry, challenges facing the timber sector, the environmental impacts of pine straw harvesting, threats to a rare native plant species from a proposed toll road, and odour complaints connected to a landfill serving a rapidly growing region.

The Miami Herald’s “Built on Sand” investigative series shared the honour this year, highlighting how the award recognises both individual reporting and ambitious team investigations.

“Environmental reporting at its best”

“WUFT’s Rural Environmental Coverage by Rose Schnabel also shows environmental reporting at its best. With exquisite writing across a collection of stories about pine-straw harvesting, a threatened native plant population, and a landfill affecting a low-income community, Schnabel exposed significant inequities that resulted in public action.”

— a judge for the 2026 Waldo Proffitt Award

Schnabel joined WUFT — the public media station housed at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications — as a Report for America corps member covering the Florida environment and agriculture desk.

About the Waldo Proffitt Award

The Waldo Proffitt Award honours journalism that advances public understanding of environmental issues and reflects the legacy of the late Florida journalist and editor Waldo Proffitt, a former editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. It was established in 1998 by friends of Proffitt and is administered by the University of South Florida’s Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications.

According to the Society of Environmental Journalists, the award recognises distinguished environmental reporting and commentary published or aired by Florida news outlets, and carried a $1,000 prize in recent editions.

Read also

Another honour for environmental and climate reporting this month: a new $500 journalism prize honours reporting linking population change to planetary health.

FAKTA

• 2026 recipients: Rose Schnabel (WUFT, Report for America) and the Miami Herald’s “Built on Sand” investigative series
• Award: Waldo Proffitt Award for Outstanding Environmental Journalism
• Administered by: the Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications, University of South Florida
• Announced: 2 October 2026
• Presentation: 20 October, hosted by the Zimmerman School
• Established: 1998, by friends of Waldo Proffitt, former editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune