Kim Gamel was a veteran journalist, former longtime foreign correspondent and Civil Beat editor since 2020. 

Judges called the coverage “a compelling example of journalism serving both accountability and the public good.”

Summertime means a new crop of Civil Beat interns. 

Drowning is the leading cause of death for children under 15 in Hawaiʻi. Megan Tagami’s story revealed how little is being done to help children get the life-saving lessons they need.

Staff coverage of the 2025 Salt Lake fireworks explosion also earned recognition in the National Headliners competition.

The Mike Berger Award is conferred by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, whose faculty judges cited the “tenacity” of Civil Beat’s reporting.

Some of the Senate’s most powerful members are protecting their longtime friend. That’s not what the public wants or expects.

Here’s a look at some memorable images from this year, many of them from Civil Beat’s photo storytelling. 

Economic worries, the longest federal shutdown in U.S. history and a chaotic tsunami evacuation kept residents on their toes in 2025. And those weren’t even the most important Hawaiʻi news stories of the year.

It would be too depressing to constantly uncover problems if we didn’t have faith that some of them could be solved.