“The inside story of how the Navy spent billions on the ‘little crappy ship'” article wins 2024 MRE Journalism Contest

Joaquin Sapien was one of the first reporters hired at ProPublica in its first year of publishing in 2008. Since then, his journalism has explored a broad range of topics, including criminal justice, social services and the environment. In 2019, he was a co-producer and correspondent for “Right to Fail,” a film for the PBS documentary series Frontline. The film was based on his 2018 examination of a flawed housing program for New Yorkers with mental illness, which appeared in The New York Times. The story immediately prompted a federal judge to order an independent investigation into the program. It won a Deadline Club Award and a Katherine Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability. Other past areas of focus include the New York City Family Court, prosecutorial misconduct, traumatic brain injury, natural gas drilling and contaminated drywall used to rebuild after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Sapien’s work has earned awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Environmental Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors. He was a four-time finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.