JOURNALISM
Public service (two prizes): The Sun Herald of South Mississippi and The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.
Breaking news reporting: Staff of The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.
Investigative reporting: Susan Schmidt, James Grimaldi and Jeffrey Smith of The Washington Post.
Explanatory reporting: David Finkel of The Washington Post.
Beat reporting: Dana Priest of The Washington Post.
National reporting (two prizes): James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times and the staffs of The San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service.
International reporting: Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley of The New York Times.
Feature writing: Jim Sheeler of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colo.
Commentary: Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times.
Criticism: Robin Givhan of The Washington Post.
Editorial writing: Rick Attig and Doug Bates of The (Portland) Oregonian.
Editorial cartooning: Mike Luckovich of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Breaking news photography: Staff of The Dallas Morning News.
Feature photography: Todd Heisler of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, Colo.
ARTS
Fiction: “March,” by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
Drama: no award
History: “Polio: An American Story,” by David Oshinsky (Oxford University Press)
Biography: “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (Alfred A. Knopf)
Poetry: “Late Wife,” by Claudia Emerson (Louisiana State University Press)
General non-fiction: “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya,” by Caroline Elkins (Henry Holt)
Music piano concerto: “Chiavi in Mano,” by Yehudi Wyner (Associated Music Publishers)
SPECIAL CITATIONS
Edmund Morgan, honored for what Pulitzer officials described as “his creative and deeply influential body of work as an American historian that spans the last half century.”
Thelonious Monk, honored posthumously for “a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz.”
Katrina coverage earns two papers Pulitzers
By Deepti Hajela
Associated Press
NEW YORK – The staffs of The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and The Sun Herald of south Mississippi captured Pulitzer Prizes for public service on Monday for chronicling the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina despite life-changing damage to their own homes and workplaces.
Tears flowed rather than champagne in the Times-Picayune newsroom, which the staff had to evacuate just eight months earlier for about six weeks. At The Sun Herald, staff members cheered and fought back tears.
The Sun Herald won for its “valorous and comprehensive coverage … providing a lifeline for devastated readers” and The Times-Picayune for its “heroic, multi-faceted coverage” to “serve an inundated city even after evacuation of the newspaper plant,” the Pulitzer citation said.
The Washington Post won four Pulitzers, The New York Times three and The Times-Picayune and the Rocky Mountain News each won two.
The Times-Picayune staff was awarded a second Pulitzer, for breaking news, for Katrina, and The Dallas Morning News was honored “for its vivid photographs depicting the chaos and pain” of the disaster.
Like their communities, The Sun Herald and The Times-Picayune took a beating from Katrina. Their buildings were damaged, advertisers and subscribers were displaced, and circulation dropped.
“It was a national tragedy,” said Peter Kovacs, the Times-Picayune’s managing editor for news. “It would not be appropriate to have champagne because of the nature of the event.”
As reporters quietly cried, editor in chief Jim Amoss stood on a table and said: “As our city was being ravaged and our citizens were dying … as all these things happened, we came together as a team and fulfilled a mission that is sacred to us.”
The Sun Herald toasted its prize with sweet tea and cookies.
“We never missed a day of publication and that’s a testament to everybody in this room,” said Ricky Mathews, president and publisher of The Sun Herald, whose coverage area includes hard-hit Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss. “We will arise from this terrible situation,” he said. “I think our best journalism is still ahead of us.”
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