Jacqueline Charles is the Miami Herald’s Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Emmy Award-winning multilingual Caribbean correspondent with responsibility for Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean.
She has reported on Haiti for over two decades and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the country’s devastating Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. She also co-produced the Herald’s post-quake documentary, “Nou Bouke,” which means “We’re Fed Up” in Haitian Creole. The documentary was broadcast in 70% of PBS’ national markets, and was awarded a regional Emmy.
Jacqueline’s list of recognition are numerous, including being described as “Haiti’s ambassador to the world” by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. She is a two-time National Association of Black Journalists Journalist of the Year, the only reporter to receive the honor twice, and a recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious prize for coverage of the Americas. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious International Center for Journalism’s Excellence in International Reporting Award for her insightful reporting as well as an Overseas Press Club of America award for leading the Miami Herald into its deep investigation into the murder plot of former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Other honors include Jacqueline has been recognized by the Haitian Roundtable’s 1804 List of Haitian-American Changemakers and Ones To Watch. She has also received recognitions from the Society of Professional Journalists and the French-American Foundation for her 2016 Haitian migration series. In 2017, she also was recognized for her contributions to the Miami Herald’s Panama Papers’ Pulitzer and the following year, she was awarded the Cabot Prize. In 2019, she was a recipient of the prestigious 2019 AACR June L. Biedler Prize for Cancer Journalism following her multipart series on “Cancer in Haiti.”
Jacqueline was born in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory, and spent her early childhood in South Caicos before emigrating to the United States, living in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood. Her journalism career began at age 14 as a Herald intern.
She has written extensively about U.S. immigration policy and its effect on Haitian migrant communities, drawing on her own deep links to Haiti and her experience as an immigrant. She has also reported on education, Florida politics and county government.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in Journalism, she currently serves as a member of UNC’s School of Media and Journalism’s Board of Advisers. She is a founding member of the Carolina Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists’ student chapter; a former editor of Carolina’s Black Ink student magazine; a past president and scholarship chairwoman of the South Florida Black Journalists Association and a former assistant director of the University of Miami/Dow Jones High School Journalism Workshop. Recognized in 2015 with a Distinguished Alumna Award by her alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jacqueline was inducted into the North Carolina Media & Journalism Hall of Fame in 2022. That same year, Jacqueline was also named the NABJ Journalist of the Year for the second time in 12 years.
