ProPublica and Local Reporting Network partner The Connecticut Mirror won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for what judges described as “an impressive series exposing how the state’s unique towing laws favored unscrupulous companies that overcharged residents, prompting swift and meaningful consumer protections.” It is the ninth Pulitzer for ProPublica.
A series about how the Food and Drug Administration has for years allowed risky drugs to enter the United States was named a finalist in the investigative reporting category, and a series about the fallout from the destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development was named a finalist in the explanatory reporting category. They are the 13th and 14th Pulitzer finalists in 18 years.
In “On the Hook,” CT Mirror reporters Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk exposed a wide range of abuses committed by towing companies across the state — due in part to a lack of oversight from the Department of Motor Vehicles — and how Connecticut’s laws had come to favor the companies at the expense of low-income residents. Towing companies could start the process to sell people’s cars in as little as 15 days if the company deemed the car to be worth less than $1,500. The window was one of the shortest in the country, CT Mirror and ProPublica found, and meant many people who couldn’t afford to quickly pay the towing fees frequently lost their cars.
Through a long public records battle, complex data analysis by Sophie Chou and Haru Coryne, and innovative engagement reporting, the reporters discovered that tow truck companies were drastically undervaluing cars compared with the book value, allowing them to sell vehicles more quickly. They revealed that towing companies often held on to people’s belongings, including work equipment and mementos that had sentimental value, as leverage to get them to pay exorbitant fees. The companies were also not abiding by a law that requires them to hold onto the profits of sold cars and turn them over to the state so owners can claim the money — because the DMV never set up a system to collect it.
Within 24 hours of the first story, Connecticut DMV leadership announced it was reviewing towing practices, and lawmakers quickly proposed a bill overhauling the state’s century-old towing statutes. Nearly every issue Altimari and Monk wrote about was included in the bill, which passed in May 2025 with nearly unanimous bipartisan support. Towing companies must now give people warning before removing vehicles from apartment parking lots unless there’s a safety issue, accept credit cards for fees, let people claim their belongings and wait at least 30 days before selling cars. A DMV task force created by the legislature to study how towing companies handle profits has expanded its scope to other parts of the law, and just last week, the state Senate passed a bill that would create an online portal so Connecticut drivers can track their towed cars and require towing companies to consider the age of towed vehicles before they’re sold.
“Our investigation of Connecticut towing companies is exactly what we envisioned when we created the Local Reporting Network,” said Charles Ornstein, ProPublica’s managing editor for local. “Start with strong local journalists who have good ideas, give them the time and resources to pursue them to their fullest potential, add to the mix ProPublica’s top-notch editing and specialty teams and watch what happens.” Since the Local Reporting Network’s launch in 2018, ProPublica has partnered with nearly 100 newsrooms supporting in-depth reporting in communities across the United States.
In “Rx Roulette,” reporters Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose and Brandon Roberts uncovered how a secret group inside the FDA has quietly allowed dangerous drugmakers to continue selling generic medications from known substandard overseas factories that have been banned from the U.S. market. The agency failed to warn doctors or patients about the exempted drugs and did not routinely test these drugs for safety or quality, putting the public at risk.
The series also revealed that basic information about where generic drugs are made is fragmented, obscured and effectively inaccessible to consumers — making it impossible for people to see if their medications are made at troubled factories — even though generics account for about 90% of U.S. prescriptions. The team, which included members of ProPublica’s data and news apps teams and over a dozen students from Northwestern University’s Medill Investigative Lab, interviewed more than 300 people, filed almost 40 Freedom of Information Act requests and sued the FDA to obtain records, ultimately constructing a publicly available database of 40,000 generic medications and their factory inspection histories — the first comprehensive list of drugs shipped from banned factories.
Citing ProPublica’s investigation, the Senate Special Committee on Aging has demanded the FDA conduct more drug testing and alert hospitals and other purchasers when manufacturers with safety failures are given exemptions from import bans. Senators are also calling for an immediate accounting of the exemptions. A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation in February that requires drug labels to identify where the medication was made, bringing more transparency and accountability to the generic drug industry.
As the Trump administration dismantled the nation’s long-standing foreign aid system, USAID, ProPublica reporters Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy documented the deadly global fallout and identified the Trump officials directly responsible in “The End of Aid.” They connected the resulting harm, including deaths of people who depended on the aid, to the U.S. policymakers and political appointees responsible for the cuts. The reporters then traveled to war-torn South Sudan to document the return of cholera after essential services stopped and to Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, where more than 300,000 people saw their food rations cut after the U.S. severed funding for the World Food Program.
The stories sparked immediate outcry. Experts, attorneys, nonprofits and lawmakers asked the Trump administration to change course, and ProPublica’s reporting was cited in legal filings and congressional inquiries challenging the dismantling of USAID. Rep. Gregory Meeks, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent multiple letters to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing the coverage and pressing him to explain his claim before Congress that no deaths had resulted from the administration’s actions.
After Barry-Jester and Murphy discovered that USAID staff were told to shred and burn classified documents, legal experts filed complaints with the National Archives, and Democracy Forward and the Public Citizen Litigation Group filed a motion for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop the destruction of federal records. And after ProPublica raised questions about an Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam that had stalled due to USAID funding cuts, putting hundreds of thousands at risk for poisoning, the project received some U.S. funds to continue operating.
“We are proud to be doing work that brings accountability at the state, national and international level,” said Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica’s editor in chief. “Our two finalists and winning entry with The Connecticut Mirror demonstrate yet again the power of investigative reporting to expose wrongs and spur changes in the lives of ordinary people.”
ProPublica received Pulitzers for public service in 2025, public service in 2024, national reporting in 2020, feature writing in 2019, public service in 2017, explanatory reporting in 2016, national reporting in 2011 and investigative reporting in 2010. Local Reporting Network partner Anchorage Daily News won the Pulitzer for public service in 2020. Read about our other projects that have been designated as finalists.
Project Credits
“On the Hook”: Shahrzad Rasekh, José Luis Martínez, Asia Fields, Elizabeth Hamilton, Michael Grabell, Shoshana Gordon, Peter DiCampo, Rachel Molenda, Sarah Blustain, Charles Ornstein, Ken B. Morales, Agnel Philip, Ryan Little, Hannah Fresques, Alissandra Calderon, Olivia Walton, Ariana Tobin, Stephen Busemeyer, Andrew Brown, Anuj Shrestha, Julia Rothman, Grace Palmieri, Kristine Malicse, Gabby DeBenedictis, Diego Sorbara, Emily Goldstein, Colleen Barry, Jack Putterman, Roman Broszkowski and Ryanne Mena contributed to the series.
“Rx Roulette”: Kevin Uhrmacher, Ruth Talbot, Alison Kodjak, Nick Varchaver, Alexandra Zayas, Tracy Weber, Caitlin Kelly, Ken Schwenke, Lucas Waldron, Ashley Clarke, Nick McMillan, Carissa Quiambao, Haley Clark, Joanna Shan, Diego Sorbara, Colleen Barry, Emily Goldstein, Lisa Larson-Walker, Anna Donlan, Grace Palmieri, Kassie Navarro, Sam Cooney, Chris Morran, Isabelle Yan, Jeff Frankl, Pratheek Rebala, Andrea Suozzo, Al Shaw, Alec Glassford, Irena Hwang, Nat Lash, Aaron Brezel, Melody Kramer, Alice Crites, Vidya Krishnan and Andrea Wise contributed to the series.
Students from the Medill Investigative Lab in Washington, D.C., also contributed: Haajrah Gilani, Emma McNamee, Julian Andreone, Isabela Lisco, Aidan Johnstone, Megija Medne, Yiqing Wang, Phillip Powell, Gideon Pardo, Casey He, Lindsey Byman, Josh Sukoff, Kunjal Bastola, Shae Lake, Alyce Brown, Katherine Dailey, Anavi Prakash, Jessie Nguyen, Sinyi Au, Zhiyu Solstice Luo, Kate McQuarrie, Sadie Leite, Victoria Malis, Tianyi Wang, Gabby Shell, Zara Norman and Naisha Roy.
“The End of Aid”: Sarah Childress, Jesse Eisinger, Tracy Weber, Stephen Engelberg, Lisa Larson-Walker, Boyzell Hosey, Alex Bandoni, Peter DiCampo, Lena Groeger, Chris Alcantara, Chris Morran, Alexis Stephens, Alex Mierjeski, Molly Redden, Maryam Jameel, Ashley Clarke, Pratheek Rebala, Emily Goldstein, Olivia Walton, Diego Sorbara, Colleen Barry, Brian Otieno, Phoebe Ouma, Le Van, Yiel Awat and Ngoc Nguyen contributed to the series. The ProPublica tips truck was a key component for generating sources.
This story originally appeared on ProPublica
