Tom Bayles
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Tom Bayles’s Biography
Read Full Bio →I cover all aspects of the environment for WGCU Public Media, NPR & PBS for Southwest Florida. I write happy brights to deep-dive enterprise stories and produce same as broadcast versions for NPR-member websites and our sister NPR radio stations throughout Florida after first publishing on WGCU.org, broadcasting on WGCU FM 90.1 FM, and presenting a TV version of our evening newsat 6:30 p.m. on WGCU-PBS.
Climate change, development issues in Southwest Florida, the Everglades Restoration, invasi…
Tom Bayles’s Journalist Portfolio
Interview
See all 21 answers →What was your first job as a journalist?
Have you ever used a typewriter?
How is social media changing news?
Awards
See all 10 awards →Suncoast Regional Emmy – National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
2025 - Documentary
On-air segment contribution to the “After Ian” team documentary effort
Gold Medal For Public Service - Florida Society of Newspaper Editors
2001 - Investigative Journalism
"The Beach Builders" is a multi-part series after a yearlong investigation into the annual rush to restock the nation's shores with sand, which is an annual multimillion-dollar exercise in futility where lives are lost to greed and wholesale environmental damage is left at the shoreline due to purposeful ignorance
Waldo Proffitt Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism in Florida
2002 - Environmental
For body of work.
Society of Professional Journalists Award
2023 - Blog Writing
First place for a weekly column on anything even closely related to water quality inshore or offshore of Southwest Florida.
Four-time Pulitzer Prize Entrant
Investigative, Feature, Breaking News, Public Service
In 2001, Investigative Reporting; In 2002, Feature Writing; In 2005, Breaking News; In 2011, Public Service
Public Media Journalists Association
2023 - Radio feature
For a profile of a retired gentleman in a Fort Myers mobile home community who lived through a tornado at the beginning of the year and then Hurricane Ian in September and still kept a very positive outlook on life.
Public Media Journalists Association
2023 - Radio feature
For a profile of a retired gentleman in a Fort Myers mobile home community who lived through a tornado at the beginning of the year and then Hurricane Ian in September yet talked of his renewed passion for life as he collected the few things he had left, then drove out of the mobile home park for the last time.
Society of Professional Journalists Award
2023 - Environmental reporting, radio and broadcast
For the "Tom Bayles Collection," a sample of some of my favorite reporting throughout the year. I happily came in third behind two colleagues on my same beat but in different parts of Florida, both who also work in public media at the NPR-affiliate stations in Tampa and Miami.
Five-time winner of The New York Times Chairman's Award
Various
Awarded for the best journalism produced during the previous month at any of the more than 20 regional newspapers then-owned by The New York Times Co. One award was for "The Beach Builders," which is linked below to an IRE-commissioned how-we-did-it article.
Gold Charlie Award
2016 - Magazine Writing
First Place• The top statewide magazine long-form feature writing honor for "Sand Storm" in Sarasota Magazine, an in-depth look into the controversy over using pristine beach sand contained in a huge shoal under Sarasota County's Big Pass for a beach renourishment on Lido Key, where multi-million-dollar condos and resorts are poised to fall into the ocean without the replanted sand. Taking the shoal sand, however, stokes the concerns of residents and business owners on Siesta Key to the south, who worry the natural flow of silky white sand to its world-famous beaches might be interrupted by the sand pumping effort endorsed by the federal government.