2 Gulf Coast Papers Share Top Pulitzer

The New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Biloxi, Miss., Sun Herald shared the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina, as journalism’s top awards focused on the cataclysmic storm, ethics scandals in Washington and controversial Bush administration tactics in the war on terrorism.

The Washington Post received four Pulitzers, the most in its history, including one for stories about secret CIA prisons overseas; and the New York Times received three, sharing the national reporting prize for disclosing the government’s warrantless wiretapping of terrorism suspects calling the United States.

Following those traditional journalistic powerhouses, the Times-Picayune and the Rocky Mountain News of Denver took two each. The only win by a California newspaper went to the San Diego Union-Tribune and its Copley News Service in Washington for disclosing the bribe-taking that sent former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe) to prison.

Around the nation, reporters and editors at dozens of newspapers hovered over their computer screens at 3 p.m. Eastern time, awaiting news about the awards, administered by the Columbia University School of Journalism.

The newsrooms in New Orleans and Biloxi broke into applause, and some tears, when wire service alerts flashed that the two papers would share the award for public service -- each receiving the gold medal that goes to winners of what is considered the competition’s top honor.

The journalists’ joyous but muted response was in recognition that they and many of their readers continued to struggle to obtain insurance payments, rebuild their homes and return to normality after the costliest natural disaster in modern American history.

In place of the traditional champagne, Sun Herald staffers sipped sweetened tea and ate chocolate chip cookies. The Times-Picayune scratched the brass band that greeted its last Pulitzer victory, also for two prizes, in 1997.

“There was a lot of joy in our newsroom, but it was all in the context of the horrific tragedy that has happened to our community and in our lives,” said Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss. “I think that made us sober.... It’s not a champagne-and-confetti moment.”

The Pulitzer board honored the paper -- which has recouped about two-thirds of its previous weekday circulation of about 269,000 -- “for its heroic, multi-faceted coverage of Hurricane Katrina ... even after evacuation of the newspaper plant.”

Rising floodwaters forced the newspaper’s staff to abandon the Times-Picayune headquarters off Interstate 10 on Aug. 30. David Meeks, who would later become city editor, led a skeleton staff back to cover the city from makeshift newsrooms and with little power. For three days, the paper published only online until it could contract with other publications to get its stories and pictures back in print.

The smaller Sun Herald in Biloxi, with a weekday circulation of about 45,000, managed to remain in print every day and to continually post Internet bulletins to help residents of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast find loved ones and locate emergency aid.

“It turned into a real community bulletin board and a real voice of unity and a lifeline,” said Janet Weaver, executive editor of the Tampa Tribune and chair of the jury that judged the public service entries.

Residents of the region have said they have felt overshadowed by media attention on the destruction of New Orleans. Sun Herald Executive Editor Stan Tiner said he hoped Monday’s award would help focus attention on Mississippi’s suffering.

“I think this affirms the value of their story,” Tiner said. “We have spoken to that before, feeling like a footnote to the bigger Katrina story. I believe this will resonate with our readers to some degree -- that their story was an important story and is an important story.”

A third prize related to the hurricane disaster went to the Dallas Morning News for breaking news photography of the “chaos and pain” wrought by Katrina.

The bulk of the other journalism awards went to hard-hitting watchdog journalism that focused on the Washington power structure.

Two of the winners scrutinized President Bush’s war on terrorism, including the stories by New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau that showed how the administration did not use an existing system to obtain warrants to wiretap suspected terrorists calling the United States.

The duo shared the national reporting prize -- and the $10,000 that goes to winners, except those in the public service category -- with Copley News Service reporters Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, who disclosed Cunningham’s receipt of $2 million in bribes from defense contractors.

Dana Priest of the Washington Post won the beat reporting award for exposing the “black site” prisons where the U.S. held terrorism suspects -- a practice that led at least one commentator to accuse the administration of “outsourcing torture.”

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said the 2006 prizes should end complaints that the press had been overly compliant with the war on terrorism. “This was a process of uncovering and publishing accounts of misconduct despite criticism and warnings from the administration,” Rosenstiel said.

The Washington-centric thrust of the awards was apparent in another category, as well -- with the Washington Post winning the investigative reporting prize for its “indefatigable probe” of Washington lobbyist and Republican political activist Jack Abramoff, which prompted ethics reform efforts on Capitol Hill.

New York Times Editor Bill Keller said he had called Washington Post Editor Len Downie and that the two agreed that the Pulitzer judges had “put a premium on watchdog journalism -- on journalism that demonstrated the press standing up to power, often with substantial consequences.”

The newspapers also won awards for their work on the international stage. The Post’s David Finkel won in explanatory reporting for his stories on attempts to bring democracy to Yemen. The Times’ Nicholas D. Kristof took the commentary prize for columns that graphically exposed the genocide in Darfur, whereas the Times’ Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley took the international reporting prize for their accounts of the ragged administration of justice in China.

The Rocky Mountain News awards went to Jim Sheeler for feature writing -- his moving accounts of a Marine major who helped families cope after losing loved ones in the war in Iraq -- and to photographer Todd Heisler for his look at the funerals of those Marines.

Other awards went to the Portland Oregonian for editorial writing, and to Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for editorial cartooning.

Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan won for “her witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism.”

Among Givhan’s columns were a critique of Vice President Dick Cheney’s casual attire at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and her analysis of the nostalgically formal outfits worn by the children of then-Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.

The Los Angeles Times had finalists in four categories -- investigative reporting, international reporting, feature photography and breaking news photography -- but the paper did not win an award. After winning 17 prizes over eight years, the paper was shut out for the first time since 1997.

The judges named The Times as finalists for exposing problems in the management of the J. Paul Getty Trust; assessing roiling dissent among European Muslims; photographs of Eskimos who were sexually abused by a missionary three decades ago; and pictures of Israel’s emotional withdrawal from Gaza.

Times staff writer Robin Abcarian contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

2006 Pulitzer Prize winners

Journalism

Public service: The Sun Herald

of South Mississippi and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Breaking news reporting:

Staff of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Investigative reporting:

Susan Schmidt, James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smith of the Washington Post.

Explanatory reporting: David Finkel of the Washington Post.

Beat reporting: Dana Priest

of the Washington Post.

National reporting: 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, Denver.

Commentary: Nicholas D. 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, Denver.

Arts

Fiction: “March,” by Geraldine Brooks (Viking).

Drama: No award.

History: “Polio: An American Story,” by David M. Oshinsky (Oxford University Press).

Biography: “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” by Kai Bird

and Martin J. Sherwin (Alfred

A. Knopf).

Poetry: “Late Wife,” by Claudia Emerson (Louisiana State University Press).

General nonfiction: “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 S. Morgan, honored for “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.”

Source: Associated Press