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WORLD> America
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NY Times snaps 5 Pulitzer awards amid crisis
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-21 16:33 NEW YORK -- The historic collapse of the American newspaper industry was evident at every turn as the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes were announced. One winner was laid off three months ago. Winning newspapers have eliminated home delivery and editions to stay afloat. A photographer celebrated his victory while lamenting the loss of colleagues who are about to be laid off.
But Pulitzer administrators said the winners, including stories that brought down two philandering politicians, were a victory for old-fashioned watchdog journalism at a time when the industry's very survival is in question. "These are tough times for America's newspapers, but amid the gloomy talk, the newspaper winners and the finalists are heartening examples of the high-quality journalism that can be found in all parts of the United States," said Sig Gissler, administrator of the prizes. "The watchdog still barks, and the watchdog still bites." Gissler said he would not try to predict the future of print journalism, "but we have to wonder what life would be like without newspapers."
In a measure of how bad things have gotten, the Detroit paper less than a month ago cut back home delivery to three days a week. Similarly, the Metro staff that broke the Spitzer story at The Times has since been cut back, and Metro was eliminated as a standalone section and folded into the main news part of the paper six days a week. Among winners in the arts category were "Ruined," Lynn Nottage's unnerving stage play about rape and brutality in the Congo, and "The Hemingses of Monticello: American Family," historian Annette Gordon-Reed's account of Thomas Jefferson's relationship with slave Sally Hemings and her family. Despite a rule change that allowed online-only news organizations to compete for Pulitzers this year for the first time, none of the 65 entries won any prizes. However, the Pulitzer board said online content played a role in several of the winning entries, and Matt Wuerker of the Web site Politico was among the three finalists for the editorial cartoon award. Most of the journalism prizes followed conventional lines -- coverage of wars, natural disasters, political scandals and presidential politics. But no one won an award for the historic Wall Street meltdown. The Las Vegas Sun won the Pulitzer for public service for exposing a high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip. Alexandra Berzon described how the rush to build quickly and at highly congested work sites led to deadly shortcuts. Her work produced changes in workplace conditions. The Free Press was honored in the local reporting category for helping to expose an extramarital affair between the mayor and his chief aide. Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to perjury, lost his office and served 99 days in jail after the text messages made it clear he had lied under oath in denying the affair while testifying in a lawsuit. The judges also awarded a second Pulitzer in local reporting, honoring the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz., for revealing how a sheriff's focus on immigration enforcement endangered investigations of other crimes. Paul Giblin, one of the reporters who wrote the prize-winning series, was laid off in January. "It is kind of sad," Giblin said. "I wish I was still at the Tribune. I'd have a party with them right now." |
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