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The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced today, and LA Times Metro staff writers Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart were named as awardees in the category of Explanatory Reporting. The duo were behind the series "Big Burn," which examined the "growth and cost of wildfires." The category seeks material that "illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing and clear presentation, in print or online or both," and the committee hailed Boxall and Cart's work as "fresh and painstaking."After the announcement and the reaction from the staff at the Times in their Downtown offices this morning, Editor Russ Stanton "noted that fewer papers are doing in-depth reporting but that the L.A. Times 'will always be one' that does such stories," according to their LA Now blog. The Times also had other journos up for awards, adds LA Observed:
The LAT's Paul Pringle was one of two finalists in investigative reporting for his stories on corruption in the SEIU here in Los Angeles, and photographer Carolyn Cole was a finalist in breaking news photography for "her valorous on-the-spot coverage of political violence in Kenya, capturing the terror as rebellion and reprisals jolted the nation."
The New York Times pulled in 5 wins, and the Las Vegas Sun won the Public Service medal (the only category to come with a medal, despite the long-standing association of the medal with the multiple prizes). Full list of winners after the jump.2009 Pulitzer Award winners, via USA Today:
JOURNALISM:
Public Service: The Las Vegas Sun.
Breaking News Reporting: The New York Times staff.
Investigative Reporting: David Barstow of The New York Times.
Explanatory Reporting: Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times.
Local Reporting: Jim Schaefer, M.L. Elrick and staff of the Detroit Free Press; and Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz.
National Reporting: St. Petersburg Times staff.
International Reporting: The New York Times Staff.
Feature Writing: Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times.
Commentary: Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post.
Criticism: Holland Cotter of The New York Times.
Editorial Writing: Mark Mahoney of The Post-Star, Glens Falls, N.Y.
Editorial Cartooning: Steve Breen of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Breaking News Photography: Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald.
Feature Photography: Damon Winter of The New York Times.
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ARTS:
Fiction: “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout.
Drama: “Ruined” by Lynn Nottage.
History: “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” by Annette Gordon-Reed.
Biography: “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” by Jon Meacham.
Poetry: “The Shadow of Sirius” by W. S. Merwin.
General Nonfiction: “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II” by Douglas A. Blackmon.
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MUSIC:
Double Sextet by Steve Reich, premiered March 26, 2008 in Richmond, VA (Boosey & Hawkes).
