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Credit: CREDIT: ANUJ SHRESTHA / SPECIAL TO PROPUBLICA

The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica were named finalists for the 2025 FOI Award from the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization for “On the Hook,” an investigation into predatory towing practices in the state.

“On the Hook” found that companies were towing cars and then selling them within 15 days, one of the country’s shortest turnaround times. The investigation also found that towing companies were frequently undervaluing cars, allowing them to sell them faster; that some companies refused to take credit card payments; and that they had held on to personal belongings as leverage to collect fees.

CT Mirror and ProPublica won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting for the investigation this week.

“The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica exposed corruption in the state’s system for towing cars, which included a state DMV employee who exploited lax state regulation by giving towing companies favored treatment, and then selling towed cars at enormous profit,” judges wrote. “The reporting showed that state law benefited towing companies at the expense of often poor car owners, and that the state DMV failed to respond to blatant abuses.”

The investigation, by Dave Altimari, Ginny Monk, Haru Coryne and Sophie Chou, was also recently honored by the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists.

“One of the cornerstones of a healthy democracy is the ability of its citizens to access and scrutinize government records, which was central to our ability to report these stories about the state’s towing law,” said Elizabeth Hamilton, executive editor of CT Mirror. “We are grateful for this recognition from IRE for our work on this story.”

There are two winners of this year’s IRE FOI Award. One is ProPublica, with supplemental reporting by students with the Medill Investigative Lab, for “Rx Roulette: The FDA’s Dangerous Game on America’s Drugs.” Judges said the story “challenged the closed and potentially life-threatening practices of the FDA involving safety testing of generic drugs and the factories that make them.”

The other is USA Today, for “Death Sentence: Treatable sepsis infections kill hundreds of inmates each year,” which judges said “painfully illustrates the failures to treat sepsis symptoms” in American jails and prisons.

As manager of audience engagement, Gabby is responsible for CT Mirror’s digital growth. She manages our website, newsletters, search engine optimization, CT Mirror Explains product, on-site marketing, social media channels and internal data analysis. Gabby previously worked as a reporter on Patch.com’s Connecticut team and as an associate editor at The Woonsocket Call in Rhode Island. She is a Connecticut native who holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from UConn and is pursuing a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.