The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting’s Tristram Korten won the 2016 Waldo Proffitt Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism in Florida for his reporting on the “climate change” ban.

Established in 1998 to honor the legacy Waldo Proffitt, a former editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the award recognizes outstanding achievement in environmental reporting and comes with a cash prize of $500.

The annual contest is administered by the Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications at the University of South Florida, and the winner is announced at the summer convention of the Florida Press Association and Florida Society of News Editors.

Korten’s reporting revealed how the administration of Gov. Rick Scott had warned state employees not to use the terms “climate change” or “global warming” in official communications. The contest’s judge said Korten “makes the case well, building up the facts and points in the same way a good lawyer would make a case before a judge.” The judge added: “And, like a good lawyer, it hits the point again and again, but with a sense of balance and restraint, not attacking so much as presenting.”