ProPublica and The Texas Tribune announced on Friday that Alexandra Glorioso is joining their investigative initiative as a reporter. She starts on May 26 and will be based in Austin.
A state government reporter at the Miami Herald, Glorioso was part of the team that uncovered that the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis orchestrated the transfer of $10 million in public funds to a foundation spearheaded by his wife. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, had hailed the Hope Florida Foundation as an alternative to welfare, one that would help needy Floridians. Instead, the nonprofit was used to divert Medicaid settlement funds to the bank account of a political committee controlled by the governor’s then-chief of staff. The committee focused on defeating an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana.
The work of the reporting team, which also included Tampa Bay Times reporters Lawrence Mower and Justin Garcia, ultimately showed that more than $35 million had been funneled from state coffers to political campaigns that targeted and helped defeat the marijuana initiative and another measure that would have repealed Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
The reporting prompted a criminal grand jury investigation by local prosecutors. The Legislature changed the law to prohibit future administrations from using public money for politics. Lawmakers also refused to give Hope Florida additional funding.
Glorioso, Mower and Garcia were named finalists for the 2026 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
Before joining the Herald, Glorioso worked for other local and national news organizations, including the Naples Daily News and Politico. She also freelanced for The New York Times and for The Guardian.
While at Politico, Glorioso exposed sexual harassment and misconduct accusations from six women against Florida’s Senate budget chairman, Jack Latvala, a Republican who had been planning to run for governor. Two independent probes later confirmed much of the reporting. Latvala, who maintained his innocence, resigned from office after the investigations.
Glorioso has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
“We are thrilled to have Alexandra on our team,” said Zahira Torres, editor for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit. “Her work shows a clear passion for accountability reporting and for investigations on topics important to Texas, including healthcare, politics and governance.
“A cancer survivor herself, Alexandra understands the importance of access to quality healthcare and the financial obstacles that many Texans must overcome. Her colleagues described her as compassionate, collaborative, fearless and relentless. We can’t wait to get started.”
“It’s a total dream job for me to join ProPublica’s Texas team and to do what I love: statewide political and healthcare investigations,” Glorioso said. “There’s so much energy in Texas politics right now, and I can’t wait to join my colleagues in shining a light on the dealmaking.”
In 2020, ProPublica and the Tribune began a first-of-its-kind collaboration to publish investigative reporting for and about Texas. Under the jointly operated investigative reporting unit, both organizations publish the team’s stories, which are distributed for free to news organizations in Texas and beyond.
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