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'No Fear to Show It Like It Is': Talk Media Wins 5 Florida Press Club Awards for Local Reporting

Eliot Kleinberg, an award-winning author and longtime Florida journalist, was the keynote speaker at Saturday’s Florida Press Club 2025 Awards gala {Talk Media}.

Talk Media journalists were honored with five awards Saturday night at the Florida Press Club’s 2025 Awards gala in West Palm Beach, a strong showing for local journalism at an event that drew major news organizations from across Florida.

The ceremony, held at the upscale venue The House, marked the 76th anniversary of the Florida Press Club, which was founded as the Florida Women’s Press Club after women journalists were excluded from existing press organizations. The annual event honored excellence in news reporting, online journalism, photography, writing, and other categories, with winners representing news outlets of all sizes across the Sunshine State.

Started in 2011, Talk Media is the parent company behind hyperlocal news sites Coral Springs Talk, Parkland Talk, Coconut Creek Talk, Tamarac Talk, Margate Talk, and Sunrise Talk. Its journalists compete in the press club’s Class C category, one of its most competitive.

In the Independent News Website category, Class A–C, Talk Media journalist Martin Lenkowsky earned a third-place award for his story “Coral Springs Middle School Inventors heading to D.C. Competition.” The article chronicled how students invented a nifty straw that turns colors if it detects any substances added to a liquid before an unsuspecting patron takes a drink.

Talk Media journalist Kevin Deutsch received multiple honors in the writing categories. In Election Coverage, Class C, Deutsch earned both second-place and third-place awards for separate stories. The first, “F–k With Me:” Former Tamarac Commissioner Mike Gelin Involved in Physical Altercation Caught on Video Outside Polling Place,” revealed a Tamarac city commissioner’s allegations that a former colleague, Elberg Mike Gelin, had grabbed him around his neck during an altercation captured partially on video.

The second story, “Unapologetic, Unhinged, Unafraid”: Tamarac Commissioner Bolton Sworn in Along With Newcomer Patterson,” chronicled the swearing-in of new city leadership in Tamarac following a contentious local election.

Judges commented on the reporting in the first story, writing: “To be so blunt about the state of things might be a job (when it gets this vulgar) that some publications shrink from. Luckily, there are some that have no fear to show it like it is: our politics have become rude and crude.”

Deutsch also earned a second-place award in Education News, Class C, for reporting on student concerns over anti-Israel material taught in a Florida International University class—coverage that sparked a statewide review aimed at rooting out coursework tainted by antisemitism and anti-Israel bias at state universities.

In Community News, Class C, Deutsch received an honorable mention award for his story about a nine-year-old Coral Springs girl who delivered an impassioned speech before the city commission. Judges wrote: “This deserves praise for the writer’s finely tuned antenna and open ears for a story that’s fresh and unexpected. All too rare.”

The night’s top statewide honors went to the Miami Herald, which received both of the Florida Press Club’s highest awards. Reporters Brittany Wallman and Sarah Blaskey won the Frances DeVore Award for Public Service for a story detailing how prosecutors’ decision to grant full immunity to a confessed murderer unraveled three murder cases.

The Herald also received the Lucy Morgan Award for In-Depth Reporting for its investigation into three wealthy brothers accused of exploiting their status as luxury real estate brokers to drug and rape women across the country. Reporters Charles Rabin, Jay Weaver, Ana Claudia Chacin, and Claire Healy led the reporting.

Florida Today columnist John Torres also received a Frances DeVore Award in the B–C division for coverage credited with helping reverse a murder conviction.

Florida Press Club President Anne Geggis said all but one category drew at least a dozen entries, with some attracting as many as three dozen.

Gala attendees Saturday heard from keynote speaker Eliot Kleinberg, an award-winning author and longtime Florida journalist who spent more than three decades at The Palm Beach Post. Kleinberg spoke about Florida history, regaling the audience with stories illustrating the state’s fascinating, strange, and sometimes tragic role in American history. He is best known for books including Black Cloud, about the deadly hurricane of 1928, and his Weird Florida series.

You can read the full list of Saturday’s award-winners here.

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Author Profile

Sharon Aron Baron

Editor of Talk Media and writer for Coral Springs Talk. CST was created in 2012 to provide News, Views, and Entertainment for the residents of Coral Springs and the rest of South Florida.