Grantee Jacqueline Charles Wins NABJ's 'Journalist of the Year' Title Again

Grantee Jacqueline Charles, a Haiti-Caribbean correspondent at the Miami Herald, received her second Journalist of The Year title from the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).

Charles began her career at the Herald as an intern when she was 14. After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she returned to the newspaper. Her reporting centered on education and the Haitian and Cuban diasporas, taking her beyond the shores of Florida. Since 2006, she has been the Herald’s full-time Haiti-Caribbean correspondent.

She won her first NABJ Journalist of the Year award for her coverage on Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Charles was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist for that same coverage. Among her other honors, she won a regional Emmy Award for her co-production role in Nou Bouke, Herald-supported documentary about rebuilding after the 2010 earthquake.

Charles won her second Journalist of the Year award, announced July 15. She will be honored at a gala on August 6.

On August 5, she will join fellow Pulitzer Center grantees Lottie Joiner and Erica Ayisi at the 2022 NABJ X NAHJ Convention and Career Fair in Las Vegas to participate on a panel that will discuss ways to strengthen Black voices while covering global stories. NABJ teamed up with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists for a joint convention this year.

Pulitzer Center Editorial Intern Ethan Widlansky spoke with Charles ahead of the convention, which will run August 3-7. The following transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Ethan Widlansky: How did you learn of your NABJ title?

Jacqueline Charles: I got an email from them probably about sometime last month (June). I received an email informing me that I had won this year's NABJ's Journalist of the Year.

EW: This is your second NABJ Journalist of the Year Award. Has anyone ever won two before?

JC: Richard Prince [columnist of “Journal-isms"] actually said that I'm the first one to win it twice. I wasn't aware of that. I won it in 2011 for my coverage in 2010, right after the (Haiti) earthquake. Prior to that, I had won International Journalist of the Year in 2009—that was the year we had four back-to-back tropical storms and hurricanes in Haiti in 30 days, and we had food riots and malnutrition. And then I got Journalist of the Year in 2011, and again for last year's coverage, which—basically—we had the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in July. Five weeks later, we had a major earthquake, and then a couple of weeks after that I had the Del Rio migration crisis.

EW: When were you designated the Miami Herald's Haiti correspondent?

"my job in covering Haiti went from "can you go?" to "you have to go," [...] since then [I] have been on the front line of every major story or event that’s taken place in that country."

 

JC: I always say that my job in covering Haiti went from "can you go?" to "you have to go,” so my first assignment on Haiti actually was just a few months after I started at the Miami Herald, a couple months after I graduated from college. That was the return of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. I was asked to go to Haiti to basically help out the reporters that were covering that major event. I officially joined the Miami Herald Foreign Desk in 2006. But prior to that, I always was the one who would get on a flight and retrace the steps of Haitian migrants after they landed in South Florida. Or I would go to the Caribbean, including Haiti, to help out on hurricane coverage. But in 2006, I officially became the Haiti-Caribbean correspondent. And since then, have been on the front line of every major story or event that’s taken place in that country.

EW: You mentioned following in the footsteps of Haitian migrants. What does it feel like? I imagine it feeling ghostly—walking the same path?

JC: Not so much. We happen to be in the largest boat migration, now, in 18 years. But you know, prior to this, this was a period in the mid-late ‘90s and early 2000s when we were seeing boats arriving in South Florida with frequency. And so, the question would always be: Where did these people leave from? Under what circumstances? Why did they leave? So, my job was to get on a plane and try to stitch together a story about why they left where they left from. It's not an easy assignment because it's not like people file a travel itinerary and say, here's where we're going. And it's often a dangerous assignment because these are people who have been smuggled and paid money to smugglers. The smugglers are on the boats so you're basically trying to retrace the steps that people took, and sometimes they made it alive, and sometimes they did not make it back alive. And so, I've been in Haiti, I've been in the Bahamas. I think this week, we've got a boat in which 17 Haitian migrants died at sea after their boat capsized in the Bahamas, and we've got 25 that are rescued. So, in cases like that, you know, I started off my career, just basically re-creating the voyages in the sense of, you know, going to where they left from, talking to family members and relatives about why they left, why they decided to take this risky journey.

EW: Is there anything you wish you could have told yourself when you started out? Is there something you wish you'd known?

"There are no shortcuts in foreign reporting because shortcuts don't keep you alive."

 

JC: You know, for people who want to be a foreign correspondent, you have to understand that when you're going into foreign countries, you don't have the benefits of public records requests, you don't often have benefits of structures or institutions. You're really very much like a detective; you really have to depend on your reporting. And so, every assignment becomes a learning opportunity. And you have to go through every assignment so that the next time you're confronted with a similar or tougher challenge, you are already prepared for it, because you've done the grunt work. There are no shortcuts in foreign reporting because shortcuts don't keep you alive. Yeah. So, you really have to put in the effort put in, you know, you just don't know.

EW: You have to be your own bureaucracy.

JC: You're rounding a corner blindly, right? You don't know what's coming across, you know, what’s coming around the corner. I've been in a situation where I've covered a hurricane, and as soon as we crossed a bridge, the bridge collapsed.

EW: Can't look back, then!

JC: Yeah, a road that literally has turned into a lake while the mountain is peeling off. And then the storm. Today, the challenge with Haiti in particular is that kidnappings are very real, they're very rapid. And so, from the minute you land to the minute you leave, you just don't know, because an ordinary thing can turn very quickly.

EW: Did you have mentors, folks at the Miami Herald or in Haiti who helped you along this path?

JC: Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the things that I have been very blessed with. In my career, since the time I was a high school intern at the Miami Herald, I have been surrounded by seasoned journalists from whom I learned. They took me under their wing. When I covered education at Herald, I remember starting off as number three on that team and working my way up to number one, learning from my colleagues like (Sue) Corbett. I remember attending an NABJ meeting and listening to Gary Pierre-Pierre, who happens to be the publisher (and founder) today at The Haitian Times. He would talk about what it's like to be a foreign correspondent, and I remember (that) just sticking with me. I've picked people like Liz Balmaseda, who was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a good friend of mine. She's won a Pulitzer off of Haiti and I’ve been turning to her advice for years. I've had so many mentors, too many to name. I've been very blessed and, you know, I say I'm a person who shops for editors, because everybody has their strengths.

Today, of the people whom I look up to, a lot of them are Haitian American authors like Edwidge Danticat. At NABJ I've got Deborah Adams, at Yale, Nancy San Martin [...]. These people are my village. I say this all of the time: You can’t do this work alone, whether it's foreign correspondence or covering city hall or covering cops, you need a village. You need to have people that you either can talk to when things are not going right or you can bounce a story idea off of or say, "Hey, can you look at the story?" So, I have always benefited from that. There’s just a trail of people out there that have touched my career at different times during this journey, and I'm very blessed and very grateful for them.

EW: I remember reading, I believe it was the Florida Sun, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you wanted to be a doctor before you wanted to be a journalist. Is that right?

JC: Yeah, right. I always wanted to be a doctor. When I was a kid in school, I excelled in science and math. You know, what happened was … I was in junior high, obviously, Washington Junior High School—my teacher, Evelyn Wynn, passed away a few years ago, and she invited the executive editor of the Herald, John Fletcher, and his wife, Dorothy. We had some time studying newspapers. And so, when they, you know, after they gave their presentation, they asked if there were any questions, and nobody was asking any questions. I just felt really self-conscious at an inner-city school, that I didn't want them to think that we were just a bunch of, like, dumb kids. So, I actually started asking questions. From that, he assumed that I was interested in journalism. I wasn't. But I was trying to break the ice. But he told me about this high school internship program. You needed to be 16 years old. I was fortunate at the time. OK, fine, whatever. But that day, when he went back to Miami Herald, he called my teacher back. He said, "Listen, we're interviewing for the next crop of high school interns. Why don't you bring that young lady?" And yeah, I guess they say the rest is history. I went in and I did well. While my friends were working in fast-food restaurants during high school, my job was to go to the Miami Herald office several times a week and write.

EW: Do you feel as if your words care more than you could have as a doctor? Do you see it as a kind of administration of care? Or is it more—are you an objective, cutting investigator?

JC: I think if there's anything I've learned in my life it is that you can't plan things out. I mean, in my mind, even when I was in Carolina, I was pre-med, I was still taking science classes. I thought, “OK, I graduate and then in two years, I'll apply to medical school, I'll do that.” But I was fortunate to be, you know, in a situation where my career was constantly moving every year and a half or two years. I was advancing, you know, in, you know, in my career. And so, I don't, I don't look at it in terms of any regrets that I didn't do that. I have an interest in medicine, that I do those kinds of stories. I mean, I see myself as being put in a unique position to tell these stories. I'm from the Caribbean, I'm of Haitian descent. What happens in the region is that we often carry ourselves like we are islands unto ourselves. We don't understand that we are more similar than we're different. And so, I view myself as being in a very unique position to build bridges and to show how we are very familiar and similar, and I can translate the modern story of Haiti, you know, to outside audiences, and I can also translate to the Haitian audience, English-speaking Caribbean. So, you know, I'm in a very unique cultural and bicultural, tricultural if you want. So, I just see that this is where I was meant to be.

EW: You've been at the Herald now for many years. How has it changed since you started? How has your reporting changed on Haiti and how was it not?

"What happens in the region is that we often carry ourselves like we are islands unto ourselves. We don't understand that we are more similar than we're different. And so I view myself as being in a very unique position to build bridges and to show how we are very familiar and similar, and I can translate the modern story of Haiti, you know, to outside audiences, and I can also translate to the Haitian audience, English-speaking Caribbean."

 

JC: Well, journalism in general, I mean, it's changed a bit, but let me just say that the Miami Herald's commitment to Haiti and the Caribbean has not changed. I know I, while I'm grateful for awards and praise, the fact of the matter is, I'm just basically picking up from where my previous colleagues left off. I mean, we've had (Yves) Colon, who's also a Haitian American, and, you know, and who has covered Haiti. So, you know, I'm not the first. This is a long tradition that is taking place here. Foreign correspondence is not cheap. It's very expensive. And the fact that I work at an institution that continues to invest in this kind of reporting and consider this reporting to be local and not foreign news is important. I mean, when I went to college at Chapel Hill, I was a print major. But I can tell you that I've had moments where I had the front-page story on, you know, something—a picture was something that I took, and online, there was a video that I did. And there were times where, depending on a video, I also edited that video. I think that today as journalists, we're no longer just a singular sequence you have to be. And, of course, our newsrooms are not as large as they once were.

But the commitment to news is still there, it's probably even more right now. Yes, we're going through changing times. It took me a while to adjust to the fact that my readership is online and not in print; we still put out a print product. I like to see that print product, especially photos and my colleagues and see their work and have their display. But I think more of my mindset is more digital, getting it online first and getting it … quickly when the news is breaking, as opposed to sitting on something. You know, for the next day's edition or the weekend edition.

EW: What do you do when you're not writing?

"I cover a country that just keeps giving to news. You know, I always tell my friends there is a difference between a job and a career: A job is where you clock in and clock out, and a career is where you just don't count the clock, you don't look at the clock and when you enjoy what it is that you do. And that is the thing about what I like about what I do. In newsrooms, things are often so structured, you have the police reporter, you have a medical writer, you've got the breaking-news reporter, but in my job, I'm everything."

 

JC: I think I'm always working. This weekend I've already had two bylines. I mean, I cover a country that just keeps giving to news. You know, I always tell my friends there is a difference between a job and a career: A job is where you clock in and clock out, and a career is where you just don't count the clock, you don't look at the clock and when you enjoy what it is that you do. And that is the thing about what I like about what I do. In newsrooms, things are often so structured, you have the police reporter, you have a medical writer, you've got the breaking-news reporter, but in my job, I'm everything. So, one day I'm writing about COVID and next day, I'm writing about a courthouse takeover, and the day after that I'm writing about arms trafficking. So, it lends itself to various stories.

I'm also very grateful for the relationships that I've built at the Pulitzer Center. Over the years, I've done three Pulitzer grants. We did the 10th anniversary: a huge project with them on the 10th anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. I did the Cancer in Haiti, which was a huge project, and we had a lot of effects. And then now I'm, you know, in the midst of this grant on […] the migration crisis, the different aspects of the whole migration issue.

EW: Does that feel circular, returning to your first assignments at the Herald?

"Migration is a story that I've always personally been interested in. It is the story. It is where the Haiti story crosses into the United States. U.S. policy is based on Haitian migration. In the last several years, I've told this story from Canada. I've told this story from Chile. I've told this story from the U.S.-Mexico border. I've told this story from different areas of Haiti. I've also told it from the Bahamas, I've told it from Jamaica. And it's a story that's constantly evolving. And it's not the same story."

 

JC: No, because migration is a story that I've always personally been interested in. It is the story. It is where the Haiti story crosses into the United States. U.S. policy is based on Haitian migration. In the last several years, I've told this story from Canada. I've told this story from Chile. I've told this story from the U.S.-Mexico border. I've told this story from different areas of Haiti. I've also told it from the Bahamas, I've told it from Jamaica. And it's a story that's constantly evolving. And it's not the same story. Maybe there's a secret society plotting all of this. [Laughs] To start off my career, we didn't have a large Haitian population in Brazil. And today we do. And so, I tell that story, the one that I just did about the “brain drain”; it's a different kind of story about a “brain drain.” With migration, it's about how a country is losing its young people at this enormous rate. So, it's part of the evolving theme of I cover Haiti and the Caribbean. But because I'm based in Miami, often, too, what I’m covering is the story of the diaspora, American diaspora, the Caribbean American diaspora, and you see where the issues at home intersect with their lives here in the United States.

EW: In your story about the “brain drain,” you write about the imaginary of the American dream. And, by just about any measure, you've achieved this success. Is there something you wish you could've told your interviewees about where its promise falls short?

"You can tell people about this illusive American dream, but their level of desperation [makes it so] that even this is easier than anything that they're dealing with."

JC: Well, you know, I tried, and that’s one of the frustrations. But you can't rationalize what is best for people, right? I always remember, a couple years ago, I was in Haiti, I was outside of the IOM [International Organization for Migration] gates, and there were people lined up to fill applications to go to Brazil. And it was at a point where a lot of Haitians who were in Brazil were starting to leave because they were becoming disillusioned with Brazil and the job situation there. And I was talking to people about, "Wow, like Brazil and Chile, the Haitian communities that are there, they're struggling, things are really tough. There are people there, and they're sort of regretting [it]." But the people that I was talking to didn’t want to hear it. A young man said to me, "You know the difference between you and I? You see that store there? [an American-style supermarket]. I've never been there in my life; I can't even afford a sandwich there. So, the fact that you can go in there, and you can afford a sandwich, you have a passport and allows you travel, you can't walk in my shoes." So that's always the challenge: You can tell people about this illusive American dream, but their level of desperation [makes it so] that even this is easier than anything that they're dealing with. So, it's very, very difficult. And it's sad because you know that people are risking their lives and there's a high probability that they die at sea or that they may be expelled back to their country and lose everything that they have built, right? Like, you know, it's like trying to stand in the middle of a moving car and put your hands up and say, “Stop!” But it can't stop because the brakes just don't work.

EW: I just have one final question. I know your work is often celebrated as a collective achievement for Black women. It undeniably is. Black excellence, however, can be a lot of pressure. What does this NABJ award mean to you, as Jacqueline Charles?

"So, the fact that NABJ has decided to honor me, what they're doing is actually honoring this coverage, honoring the Miami Herald's unflinching commitment to keeping this story in the, you know, in the U.S. press, because when other newspapers have parachuted in and left, I am still there. I am consistently there. And so, you know, they're saying that “We recognize, and we understand the complexity of the story, we understand the importance of the story. And most importantly, we don't have Haiti fatigue, right, you want to tune in, we want you to, you know, to follow this coverage. And we deem that this coverage is important when you think of all the things that happened last year in the news, and the coverage, and they are saying that this Haiti story is an important story. And this journalism, this institution basically kept it out there. And we feel that that should be recognized.”

JC: You know as a journalist when you do this kind of work—when I pitch a story or when my editor says, "Well, I'm not thinking about what kind of award you're gonna get out of this, we don't think of awards." What you think about is that what you hope for is impact. You hope to make a difference. I'm an NABJ baby; I was a founding member of the Carolina Association when I was in college. I was in high school when the first NABJ conference happened in Miami. But it was here, and it was the first time I'd heard about it. And so, when you are honored by your own, it always takes on a very special meaning. This award isn't even about me.

We have this country called Haiti that, last year, suffered the unimaginable. Even before the president was assassinated on the seventh of July, I was writing stories about kidnapping, writing about drivers being attacked, they were being kidnapped, they were being killed. And while I know that, you know, Haitians are reading my stories because they want to know what's going on at home, they want to know if their family members are safe or not. You're not so certain about the other audience, the non-Haitian audience—do they care enough about what's happening? So the fact that NABJ has decided to honor me, what they're doing is actually honoring this coverage, honoring the Miami Herald's unflinching commitment to keeping this story in the, you know, in the U.S. press, because when other newspapers have parachuted in and left, I am still there. I am consistently there. And so, you know, they're saying that “We recognize, and we understand the complexity of the story, we understand the importance of the story. And most importantly, we don't have Haiti fatigue, right, you want to tune in, we want you to, you know, to follow this coverage. And we deem that this coverage is important when you think of all the things that happened last year in the news, and the coverage, and they are saying that this Haiti story is an important story. And this journalism, this institution basically kept it out there. And we feel that that should be recognized.”

EW: Is there anything you'd like to add?

"I hope my career shows is that you put in the sweat, you put in the time, you have the patience, things will come. Building the sources and doing the kind of journalism that you're proud of like that, that for me is what's important."

 

JC: I have to give a speech on Friday night, and it's aimed at young reporters. I know that those types of young reporters—they want something yesterday, and what I hope my career shows is that you put in the sweat, you put in the time, you have the patience, things will come. Building the sources and doing the kind of journalism that you're proud of like that, that for me is what's important. That I look back, and there are moments that I've missed: friends, weddings, family events that I wasn't able to be at because I was in the field. But at the end of the day, I'm OK with that. Because I know what I was doing at the time, and I'm proud of what I was doing at the time.

EW: We at the Pulitzer Center, again, want to extend another big congratulations.

"Thank you, guys, because you all have also allowed me to do some of the journalism that I want to do with those deep dives. I was able to take a step back on these important stories. [...] I think that's important that it's not, you know, sometimes we have no choice but to get on the phone and talk to people. But it's always better when you're able to be there on the ground. They would yield what it smells like, what it looks like, and bring, you know, and hopefully have people who are those policymakers see that coverage and hopefully that coverage will make a difference."

 

JC: Thank you, guys, because you all have also allowed me to do some of the journalism that I want to do with those deep dives. I was able to take a step back on these important stories. My Cancer in Haiti story was an idea that I had five years before I actually produced it. And it was made possible because of the assistance I got from the Pulitzer Center. This latest migration, I got the idea after Del Rio, I thought the story was going to be in Latin America. But then when I started seeing these boats washing up on the shores of South Florida, that's when the story turned and I said, "You know what, we have to go to Haiti," and we went to a region of Haiti that today has been cut off by gang violence. And because of the support from the Pulitzer Center, I was able to go there and go on the ground and tell that story from the north coast of Haiti. I think that's important that it's not, you know, sometimes we have no choice but to get on the phone and talk to people. But it's always better when you're able to be there on the ground. They would yield what it smells like, what it looks like, and bring, you know, and hopefully have people who are those policymakers see that coverage and hopefully that coverage will make a difference.