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The
Washington Post dominated the 92nd Pulitzer Prizes for
journalism Monday, winning six, including the prestigious
public service award for its series exposing substandard
conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The Post
received honors for coverage of topics including private
security contractors in
Iraq,
a violin virtuoso’s incongruous (and mostly overlooked)
performance in a Washington subway station, and Vice
President Dick Cheney’s sub rosa exercise of executive
power.
The only
newspaper to have won more of the awards in a single year
was The New York Times, which in 2002 took home seven
Pulitzers, most of them for coverage of the September 11
terrorist attacks and their aftermath.
THE Washington Post newsroom
breaks into applause after it was announced Monday the
paper won six Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of stories
ranging from the shoddy treatment of America’s war wounded
at Walter Reed to coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre.
--AP/PABLO
MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS
With the
newspaper industry obsessing over lost revenue and
readers’ shift to the Internet, Post journalists saw the
newspaper’s multiple prizes as confirmation of the
continuing value of dogged reporting and artful writing.
“Original
reporting still matters,” Post staff writer and blogger
Joel Achenbach wrote on the paper’s web site Monday. “It’s
probably our best gimmick. It’s what we do (imperfectly to
be sure) better than anyone else in the news business. It
also can’t be easily replaced on the cheap by some other
information-delivery system.”
Among the
other winners were The New York Times—which took prizes
for investigative reporting on foreign imports and for
explanatory journalism about DNA—and Investor’s Business
Daily. The financial paper, based near Marina del Rey,
California, took its first Pulitzer for the editorial
cartooning of Michael Ramirez.
The Post’s
public-service award came for its vivid accounts of the
poor treatment suffered by wounded soldiers at what was
supposed to be a premier medical facility. Reporters Dana
Priest and Anne Hull and photographer Michel du Cille
depicted a hospital littered with mouse droppings,
broken-down furniture and an inattentive staff.
THIS
Reuters photograph made available by the Pulitzer Board at
Columbia University is by Adrees Latif, who won the 2008
Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. Taken
September 27, 2007, the photograph’s original caption
reads “A Japanese video journalist, Kenji Nagai, falls to
the ground after being fatally shot by a soldier during
demonstrations in Myanmar.”
--AP/ADREES LATIF, REUTERS
The
stories provoked widespread outrage, leading Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates to fire Army Secretary Francis
J. Harvey.
Sen.
Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., recalled Monday how the Post’s
stories “turned my stomach.” She said the Post’s reporting
gave a lot of “oomph” to stalled legislation to improve
treatment for active-duty military and veterans.
“I worry
that some papers are really chipping away at this kind of
good, investigative journalism,” said McCaskill, a member
of the Armed Services Committee, which reviewed the
hospital’s shortcomings. “It keeps us honest. It keeps our
democracy honest. And, in this case, it protected
literally hundreds of good, patriotic Americans who
obviously deserved a lot, lot better.”
The Post
won the national reporting prize for its four-part series
about how Cheney has wielded power and policy influence
like no previous vice president.
Reporters
Barton Gellman and Jo Becker spent a year and interviewed
more than 200 people in their research on Cheney.
THIS photograph is an example
of the work by Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor,
who won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Taken
on January 13, 2007, the photograph’s original caption
reads, “Carolynne St. Pierre, stricken with terminal liver
cancer, is surrounded by loved ones in her home.” -- AP/THE
CONCORD MONITOR, PRESTON GANNAWAY
Gellman
said Monday that the Cheney story was such a “tough nut to
crack” that he had ducked it for some time and worried
that months of reporting might lead to nothing.
A
breakthrough came one day when three key interviews helped
confirm how Cheney slipped a proposal for military
commissions through the White House bureaucracy, and in
front of Bush for his signature, with little review by
others.
In a
decidedly more whimsical vein, the Post’s Gene Weingarten
won the feature writing award for his account of violinist
Joshua Bell’s encounter with the masses commuting through
the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station.
Weingarten
asked whether, “In a banal setting at an inconvenient
time, would beauty transcend?” It did not. Hundreds of
commuters paid little heed to Bell’s soaring artistry.
The Post
won its three other Pulitzers for breaking news reporting,
for its “multifaceted coverage of the deadly shooting
rampage at Virginia Tech,” told with numerous online
updates; for foreign reporting, for Steve Fainaru’s
accounts showing how private security contractors in Iraq
operate outside most laws governing US forces; and for
commentary, for Steven Pearlstein’s “insightful columns
that explore the nation’s complex economic ills with
masterful clarity.”
MICHAEL RAMIREZ of
Investor’s Business Daily was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for Editorial Cartooning.
--AP/PULITZER PRIZE BOARD
The
investigative reporting prize was shared by The New York
Times and the Chicago Tribune for stories that led to
substantial policy changes. The Times story exposed how
medicine and other imports from China included toxic
ingredients. The Tribune investigation showed poor
government regulation of toys, car seats and cribs, and
led to a recall of hazardous products.
The Boston
Globe’s Mark Feeney won the criticism award for his review
of a range of arts, from painting to film, while the
breaking news photography award went to Adrees Latif of
Reuters for his picture of a Japanese videographer fatally
wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.
In a year
when most prizes went to big-name news institutions, there
were a couple of exceptions. Preston Gannaway of the
Concord (N.H.) Monitor won the feature photography prize
for her chronicle of a family coping with the mother’s
terminal illness. And David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel won the local reporting award for stories
about the padding of pensions for county employees.
Ramirez,
who won his second Pulitzer Prize, was dropped as the Los
Angeles Times’ regular editorial cartoonist in 2005. Like
many newspapers, the Times no longer employs a regular
cartoonist.
Ramirez,
46, said Monday he was “sad” to no longer be at the Times
and hoped that the ranks of editorial cartoonists will one
day be replenished.
He added
that he was proud to bring the first Pulitzer to
Investor’s Business Daily, which he said was filled with
“very smart people...and the best editorial page in the
country.” |
