When it comes to landing scoops about the grimy side of Miami life, count on Sheldon Fox to be the first TV reporter on the scene. A Magic City native, Fox is known for his exclusives documenting violent episodes that are commonplace in our tropical dystopia. He was first to report on a roving band of male bicyclists attacking and robbing unsuspecting pedestrians in Miami Beach. The story included cellphone footage of the young men ganging up on and beating a victim. Fox was also the first on the scene in Miami's Silver Bluff neighborhood shortly after an unidentified man was spotted indiscriminately shooting a high-powered rifle in the street. And he uncovered the exclusive police bodycam footage showing police officers blowing up a door and windows of a hotel room where a homicide suspect was holed up. Fox is also keen on public-service journalism, like the time he reported how a woman videotaped a tow truck driver rifling through her car after he hitched the vehicle for being illegally parked. The driver was later arrested for allegedly stealing cash and iPhone accessories from the woman's SUV.

From a once-in-a-thousand-years storm that parks itself over Fort Lauderdale to tracking oncoming hurricanes to practical tips on navigating the brutal South Florida heat, we look to Betty Davis. As chief meteorologist for Local 10, she's our trusted weather source on weekdays during the station's 4, 6, and 11 p.m. shows. She has been in the biz for 15 years, with stints at the Weather Channel and in markets farther up the East Coast. We're glad she's here — her impact extends well beyond her forecasts, including regular visits to local classrooms and universities to inspire the next generation of atmospheric scientists. We can count on Davis' forecasts to be bright even when the weather isn't.

Morning commutes can be a doozy around these parts. One silver lining is DJ-rockstar extraordinaire Ashley O on South Florida's alternative station, 104.3 The Shark. She's on mornings from 6 to 10 a.m. with her hot takes and funny commentary. Over the years, she has interviewed bands like Twenty One Pilots and the Killers, started a program that pays off outstanding student lunch debt in Broward County, and is the beloved local face of The Shark's biggest annual concert spectacle, the Audacy Beach Festival (formerly Riptide Music Festival). She's a blast to follow on social media, too, dishing on everything from favorite hot dog toppings to what it's like to work in the DJ booth.

A lot of stations claim to play "the hits." Hits 97.3 actually does. Perhaps it's in the name, but the station has mastered the right balance of Latin thump, contemporary pop, and nostalgic throwbacks to keep South Florida jammin' through the day. Its DJ lineup is great, too, with quintessential Miami girl Jade Alexander hyping up our mornings and comedian/actress/DJ Brittany "Duchess of Kendall" Brave making us laugh. Thank you, Hits 97.3 We think you're a hit, too.

A lot of climate reporting focuses on big-picture data and futuristic projections. But stories bearing the byline of the Miami Herald's Alex Harris — the paper's first climate reporter — often focus on what a changing climate feels like. Harris reports on climate change as a personal, local issue affecting all of us, from coastal condo owners to the working poor. Take her stories on the catastrophic flooding in Fort Lauderdale earlier this year, including one presciently titled: "A freak storm, but also the future?" In between accessible explanations and frightening data points, Harris weaves in stories about an elderly resident floating in her home on a mattress and panicked parents hoisting their young children on a sofa to avoid rising floodwaters. One thing Harris's work makes glaringly clear: Climate change is here, and it's happening now.

Miami Herald photographer Carl Juste has been at it for decades. Since 1991, the award-winning photojournalist has been holding his camera up to the injustices, scandals, and beauty that surround South Florida, while bringing empathy and a strong moral compass to his work. That work was deservingly spotlighted in last year's HBO documentary Endangered, which featured Juste and three other journalists discussing how freedom of the press is under attack abroad and in the U.S. It's been said in industry circles that if you want to know what's going on in Miami, figure out where Juste is. You'll find him in hurricane-ravaged suburbs, at protests against police brutality, inside the homes of vulnerable migrants, and anywhere else history is being made in the moment.

As a reporter, it's important to ask the hard questions and awaiting those answers can often be long and fraught — but never when they're directed at Miami Police Department spokesman Orlando Rodriguez. Rodriguez respects tight deadlines, assists with public-records requests, and responds to inquiries seemingly 24/7 (sometimes within minutes!). Rodriguez has never dodged a request for comment or ghosted us completely unlike other media liaisons with other public agencies (we're glaring at you, City of Miami).

You'd be forgiven for thinking Jonathan Escoffery's 2022 debut, If I Survive You, is a memoir. Throughout much of the book, the author, who was raised in Miami by Jamaican parents, uses second-person narration to tell the story of Trelawny, a Jamaican-American boy growing up in Miami in the '90s and coming of age in the post-recession aughts. ("On the day you are scheduled to begin the sixth grade, a hurricane named Andrew pops your house's roof open.... Nor do you share your concern that in Miami, great city of cons, you're as likely to wind up getting your organs harvested as you are to make a profit here.") The book, a compilation of eight related short stories, reads like a novel, telling a continuous story while jumping back and forth in time and closing with Trelawny scrapping to buy his father's sinking home in Cutler Ridge. It's a fairy-tale ending fit for Miami and what Trelawny describes as the Magic City's "aroma of promise": that at any time, "you are a single lucky break from becoming one of the haves."

There are few places on this peninsula where discophiles can uncover a rare reissued vinyl in mint condition and a well-worn copy of the 2 Live Crew's As Nasty as They Wanna Be under the same roof. Praise Technique Records, which has been providing Miami vinyl aficionados with a trove of more than 20,000 new and used records since 2017. While you can peruse all of Technique's inventory on its website, it's worth browsing the aisles of the 79th Street headquarters to take in the giant posters for cult-classic movies, the vast selection of DVDs and VHS and cassette tapes, and a staff eager to help you navigate the row upon row of sonic treasures.

Vinyl takes a long time to press. It's also clunky. Whether it sounds better than an MP3 is up for dance-floor debate. None of that deterred a ragtag group of University of Miami grads from creating the vinyl-only record label Sports Records. In six years, the label, spearheaded by Michael Bird, Jacob Friedland, Kyle Parker, Will Cormier, and Daniel Edenburg (AKA Brother Dan), has generated nine releases, 42 parties, and an unmistakable house sound that is sleek and sexy. Turntable fodder aside, the label is known for its funk-filled parties at Floyd and at warehouses across the Magic City, so the uninitiated will have plenty of opportunities to savor their production cred.