Three reporters who have shaped state government coverage are heading out, led by two of the journalists at the center of the Hope Florida saga.
Alexandra Glorioso, a state government reporter at the Miami Herald, is joining the investigative unit jointly operated by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, the organizations announced Friday. She starts May 26 and will be based in Austin, doing statewide political and health care investigations. “It’s a total dream job for me,” 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.”
Glorioso was part of the team that uncovered how Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ administration steered $10 million in public funds to the Hope Florida Foundation, the nonprofit championed by Casey DeSantis as a welfare alternative. The reporting showed more than $35 million was funneled from state coffers into political committees that helped defeat the 2024 recreational marijuana and abortion ballot measures. It prompted a criminal grand jury investigation and a change in state law. Glorioso and her collaborators were named finalists for the 2026 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Earlier, while at POLITICO, she exposed the misconduct allegations that ended a state Senator’s political career.
Where Glorioso goes, so goes her reporting partner. Lawrence Mower, the Tampa Bay Times’ Tallahassee correspondent and one of her chief Hope Florida collaborators, posted that he and Glorioso — who are married — are relocating to Austin in August.
You may have been on the other side of Glorioso’s or Mower’s reporting, but, watching them from afar, especially during Glorioso’s battle against cancer, it is clear they make an incredible couple.
And in a separate departure, Cody Butler, who launched Gray’s Florida Capital Bureau in 2023, said his last day was Friday. He’s headed to WHIO in Dayton, Ohio, to anchor.
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— Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review were performed by Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team.
