The American Society of Magazine Editors announced that a Honolulu Star-Advertiser project in collaboration with ProPublica on the effect of shoreline structures on Hawaii’s beaches won a 2021 National Magazine Award.

Honoring excellence in digital innovation, the National Magazine Awards (also known as the Ellies) chose “Hawaii’s Beaches Are Disappearing,” by the Star-Advertiser’s Sophie Cocke and ProPublica’s Ash Ngu.

Cocke spent a year as a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, collaborating on an investigative project about Hawaii’s beaches and environmental laws. The project exposed the various ways in which coastal homeowners have used loopholes to circumvent Hawaii’s environmental laws at the expense of the state’s beaches. Some got permission from the state to build new seawalls or keep existing ones. Others got state approvals to use sandbags and heavy tarps, which can have the same damaging effects as seawalls.

Using drone footage and shoreline maps, the story included an interactive map that showed, for the first time, the collective impact of shoreline armoring. What might have been a dense story on policy became easy to understand for readers, who were able to visualize the scale of the misuse and to search which properties had received permits to maintain older seawalls or build new ones.

“This national recognition is a reflection of the outstanding work that Sophie produced during her yearlong investigation for the Star-Advertiser in our collaboration with ProPublica,” said Star-Advertiser President and Publisher Dennis Francis. “Her groundbreaking research and reporting prompted state legislators to consider measures addressing sea level rise and beach loss, including a disclosure requirement law for selling coastal properties that is awaiting action by the governor.”

Cocke has been a longtime government reporter at the Star-Advertiser, and currently concentrates on health coverage.

ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom based in New York that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.