Announcement from Peter Wallsten, investigative unit editor, Eric Rich, deputy investigations editor and Emma Brown, deputy editor, rapid response:
We are thrilled to announce that Sarah Blaskey, a tenacious and versatile reporter who has spent the last six years at the Miami Herald landing accountability scoops and high-impact investigations, is joining the rapid-response investigations team.
Sarah’s new role, in which she will focus on urgent topics of intense public interest, is a natural progression from her work at the Herald. She was among the reporters who responded immediately after the collapse of a condominium building in Surfside, Fla., which killed 98 people in June 2021. Within days, Sarah’s meticulous reporting had shed light on the cause of the disaster, work that helped the Herald win a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. She then went deeper, producing a comprehensive text story and an animation that authoritatively explained how the building failed. For that work, she was a finalist for the Livingston Award — one of three times she has been recognized with that honor.
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew 48 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022, Sarah traveled to San Antonio, where her on-the-ground reporting helped the Herald break the news that a local sheriff had opened a criminal investigation into the migrant-flight operation. Sarah then anchored a behind-the-scenes account showing that the operation was larger and closer to DeSantis than previously understood. The coverage by Sarah and her Herald colleagues was recognized with a George Polk award for political reporting.
Sarah has frequently teamed up with beat reporters across the Herald newsroom and, colleagues say, is fun to share a foxhole with. In 2023, she and local reporters delivered a string of accountability stories on Miami government corruption that spurred investigations by state and federal authorities. That series was a semi-finalist for the 2024 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Sarah is also the co-author of “The Grifter’s Club,” a 2020 book about the many profit-seekers who flocked to Mar-a-Lago seeking to capitalize on proximity to then-President Trump.
Sarah, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a B.S. in history and then from Columbia Journalism School with a master’s in investigative journalism, enjoys running and hiking and is looking forward to exploring the D.C. region’s parks and wilderness.
She joins the newsroom on July 22.
