ProPublica announced Wednesday that Mario Ariza is joining its newsroom’s unit in the South as a reporter covering Florida, where he will be based. He starts on March 31.
Ariza comes to ProPublica after three years as a national investigative reporter at Floodlight, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom that covers the forces stalling climate action. His reporting on the secret political life of power companies brought to light how operatives working for these companies used untraceable political donations to surveil journalists, dictate news coverage and buy support among civil rights groups. Ariza’s co-reported coverage contributed to the unexpected retirement of at least one power company CEO in 2023. The series was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize and won both the Los Angeles Press Club’s award for reporting on misinformation and the 2024 Southern Environmental Law Center’s Reed Award. More recently, his work has focused on the effects of the Trump administration’s funding freezes on small farmers and rural businesses.
Before joining Floodlight, Ariza was an investigative reporter at the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He was a key member of reporting teams that investigated Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pandemic response, the use of police K-9s in Broward County and the lobbyists who weakened Florida’s condominium safety laws.
A Dominican immigrant who came to the United States as a child and grew up in Miami, Ariza has written deeply about the present and future effects of climate change on the region, including in his 2020 book “Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe.”
With Ariza’s arrival, ProPublica’s five regional offices will have local reporters in 18 states. In addition, we work with 21 local news organizations through our Local Reporting Network, which is partnering with newsrooms to publish accountability journalism in every state over the next five years.
“Florida is overflowing with accountability stories that need to be told, whether on the nexus of power players at Mar-a-Lago, the real-world implications of immigration policies, the effects of climate change, or dozens of other locally significant and nationally resonant topics,” said ProPublica South Editor Mara Shalhoup. “Mario has the investigative skills, the passion for collaboration and the deep understanding of Florida required to tell these stories.”
“It’s an honor and a privilege to cover my home state for ProPublica,” Ariza said. “I’ve always admired this organization's fearless devotion to fairly telling the facts.”
