Tom Bayles on Muck Rack

Tom Bayles

Verified
Fort Myers
As seen in: WGCU Public Media, NPR, Health News Florida, WUSF Public Media, WLRN-FM (Miami, FL), WUSF-FM (Tampa, FL), WVXU-FM (Cincinnati, OH), WAMU-FM (Washington, D.C.), KNPR-FM (Las Vegas, NV), WESA-FM (Pittsburgh, PA), New Hampshire Public Radio and
Covers:  Environment, Climate Change, Global Warming, Everglades, Invasive Species, Beach Renourishment, Nature, Animals, Wildfires, Coastal Systems, Florida, Development, Hurricanes, Oceans, Water, Ecocsystem
Doesn't Cover: Schools, Religion, Business, Promotions, Public Relations, Sports, Travel, Entertainment, Ribbon Cuttings, Health, Cops, Courts, Advocacy, Politics
Tom Bayles, Senior Digital Environmental Reporter, WCGU Public Media 90.1 FM - NPR and PBS for Southwest Florida
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Awards

Suncoast Regional Emmy – National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

2025 - Documentary

On-air segment contribution to the “After Ian” team documentary effort

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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