Feature: Pulitzer Prizes 2008Honoring Excellence
By Mary Lynn F. JonesFirst Published: May 2008
The Washington Post, watchdog reporting highlight Pulitzer Prizes
The Washington Post and watchdog journalism dominated the 2008 Pulitzer Prizes, with the Post winning the second-largest number of awards in the competition’s 92-year history.
The Post showed a “remarkable diversity across categories,” winning for public service, breaking news reporting, national reporting, international reporting, feature writing and commentary, notes Sig Gissler, administrator of the program. The Post’s feat is surpassed only by The New York Times, which won seven Pulitzers in 2002, primarily for coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and their aftermath.
Among the 2008 winners, watchdog journalism emerged as a theme. The Post won the Public Service award for coverage of problems in care and treatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won the local reporting prize for his work about politicians who skirted tax laws and padded their pensions.
Umhoefer says the award represents a “big payoff” for the paper’s decision to form a 10-person watchdog team last year. He spent four months reporting the story and another two months writing it. “To go into depth on something this complicated, there’s no way you can do that as a beat reporter,” adds Umhoefer, the paper’s local government investigative reporter.
The 1,167 prize submissions this year decreased slightly from last year’s total of 1,225 and from the roughly 1,500 entries the committee received in the 1990s. The public service and investigative reporting categories attracted a few more entries than in 2007 while commentary and local reporting drew slightly fewer, Gissler says.
Many submissions integrated online elements in just the second year that such elements could be included in all categories, Gissler adds. Online elements were part of 44 percent of public service entries and 25 percent of investigative and explanatory reporting entries. The Post’s winning public service entry included 10 articles, nine photographs and an audio slide show.
Three newspapers and news organizations won their first Pulitzers: Investor’s Business Daily in Los Angeles for editorial cartooning, Reuters (now known as Thomson Reuters) in New York City for breaking news photography and the Concord (N.H.) Monitor for feature photography. This year also marked the first Pulitzer for the Journal Sentinel since The Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel merged in 1995.
Michael Ramirez, who won the editorial cartooning prize for Investor’s Business Daily, is a repeat recipient. He won his first Pulitzer in 1994 at The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. Winning again is sweeter because it is a “reaffirmation of the quality of the work,” he says.
One of his cartoons featured an image of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as an Easter Island statue, with one onlooker telling another, “I have no idea what it is, but I feel strangely attracted to it.”
“The message is the most important element of the political cartoon,” Ramirez says.
Pulitzer Prize winners receive $10,000, although the public service award recipient receives a gold medal rather than cash. Prizes will be presented during a ceremony at Columbia University in New York City on May 29. Here’s a look at the winners:
Public Service: The Washington Post, for coverage by reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull and photographer Michel du Cille, a three-time Pulitzer winner, of problems in care and treatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that evoked a “national outcry” and reforms by federal officials.
Finalists: The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer and Newsday in Melville, N.Y.
Breaking News Reporting: The staff of The Washington Post for its “exceptional, multi-faceted” coverage, in print and online, of the April 2007 shootings by a student gunman at Virginia Tech.
Finalists: The staffs of The Idaho Statesman in Boise and The New York Times.
Investigative Reporting: Two prizes were awarded. The first went to Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of The New York Times for articles about toxic ingredients in medicine and other products imported from China that led to crackdowns in the United States and China. The second went to the staff of the Chicago Tribune for examining “faulty government regulation” of toys, car seats and cribs, which led to recalls of the products and congressional investigation.
Finalist: Miles Moffeit and Susan Greene of The Denver Post.
Explanatory Reporting: Amy Harmon of The New York Times for her “striking examination” of ethics involved in DNA testing by telling the human stories behind the dilemmas.
Finalists: Beth Daley of The Boston Globe and the staff of The Oregonian in Portland.
Local Reporting: David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who examined the ways county employees danced around tax laws to increase their pensions, leading to possible prosecution of some officials.
Finalists: Chris Davis, Matthew Doig and Tiffany Lankes of the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, and Jeff Pillets, John Brennan and Tim Nostrand of The Record in Hackensack, N.J.
National Reporting: Jo Becker and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post for shining light on the role of Vice President Cheney, who has a “powerful yet sometimes disguised influence on national policy.”
Finalists: The staff of The New York Times and Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune.
International Reporting: Steve Fainaru of The Washington Post for his “heavily reported” articles examining how private U.S. security companies in Iraq do not have to follow laws that apply to U.S. forces.
Finalists: The staff of The New York Times and the staff of The Wall Street Journal.
Feature Writing: Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post for a magazine article about a well-known and highly respected violinist who went unnoticed by commuters as he played near an entrance to a subway station.
Finalists: Thomas Curwen of the Los Angeles Times and Kevin Vaughan of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.
Commentary: Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post who wrote “insightful columns” that showed the country’s economic travails with “masterful clarity.”
Finalists: Regina Brett of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and John Kass of the Chicago Tribune.
Criticism: Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe who demonstrated a “penetrating and versatile command” of the visual arts.
Finalists: Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post and Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Editorial Writing: No award was given.
Finalists: Maureen Downey of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rodger Jones of The Dallas Morning News and the staff of the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison.
Editorial Cartooning: Michael Ramirez of Investor’s Business Daily in Los Angeles for “provocative” drawings that show “originality, humor and detailed artistry.”
Finalists: Tom Batiuk of King Features in New York City and Clay Bennett of The Christian Science Monitor in Boston.
Breaking News Photography: Adrees Latif of Reuters for his “dramatic” photo of a Japanese videographer lying fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.
Finalists: Mahmud Hams of Agence France-Presse and the staff of the Los Angeles Times.
Feature Photography: Preston Gannaway of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, who gave readers an “intimate” portrait of the way one family dealt with a mother’s life-ending illness.
Finalists: David Guttenfelder of The Associated Press in New York City and Mona Reeder of The Dallas Morning News. 
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