Don may be nigh on relentless with his critique of the Washington Post, but they certainly do get things right from time to time, and today they take home six Pulitzer awards for National Reporting (to Jo Becker and Barton Gellman for their exploration of Vice President Cheney), International Reporting (to Steve Fainaru for his coverage of private security firms in Iraq), Feature Writing (to Gene Weingarten for his piece on Joshua Bell busking in the Metro), Commentary (to Steven Pearlstein for his columns on economic ills in the US), Public Service (Dana Priest, Anne Hull and Michel du Cille for their coverage of Walter Reed) and Breaking News Reporting (for reporting on Virginia Tech)
Wow. When you look at those six awards, it’s hard to see how anyone else could have come home with the award. The Cheney piece, the Walter Reed piece and the Gene Weingarten piece on Joshua Bell were all heavily featured and reprinted throughout the rest of the US, and the Post’s unique work on the VT shootings was pretty much incredible.
Congrats, Post, for your excellent work in 2007. You guys are giving the winners all big raises, right? Right?
The last time one paper swept up so many of the awards in one year was 2002, when the New York Times picked up 7 awards, most of them for coverage of 9-11 and the aftermath. I’m sure their news department will find appropriate other parallels in the history of the award, but going back twenty years, I can find no other paper with as distinguished a record in a single year as the Post has in the 2008 awards.
[Update] The Post has put all the award-winning articles together for easy reading.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
