Va. paper wins Pulitzer for gas-royalties coverage

[April 20, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- The Herald Courier of Bristol, Va., a small paper in the coalfields of Appalachia, beat out journalism's powerhouses to win the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for uncovering a scandal in which Virginia landowners were deprived of millions in natural gas royalties.

The daily was honored for what many regard as an endangered form of journalism in this age of wrenching newspaper cutbacks -- aggressive reporting on local issues.

The Washington Post received four Pulitzers -- for international reporting on Iraq, feature writing, commentary and criticism. The New York Times won three -- for national reporting, for explanatory reporting, and for investigative reporting for collaborating with the fledgling news service ProPublica for a story on the life-and-death decisions made by New Orleans doctors during Hurricane Katrina.

The ProPublica prize -- and an editorial cartooning award for the self-syndicated Mark Fiore, whose work appears on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site SFGate.com -- represented a victory for new media in a competition long dominated by ink-on-newsprint.

ProPublica, a 2-year-old organization, is bankrolled by charitable foundations, staffed by distinguished veteran journalists, and devoted to doing the kind of big investigative journalism projects many newspapers have found too expensive.

The Pulitzers opened its doors wider in recent years to online-only material. The changes reflect the seismic shifts going on in the industry in the past decade, with readers getting their news online at all hours, in a never-ending news cycle.

Pulitzer administrator Sig Gissler said there about 100 online entries from 50 sites this year, up from 65 entries last year.

"You could see they're really doing serious journalism," he said. "I think over time they're going to get stronger."

The 33,000-circulation Herald Courier -- with only seven reporters -- won the Pulitzer for reporter Daniel Gilbert's computer analysis that showed how a state board allowed the energy industry to funnel into an unaudited escrow fund tens of millions of dollars in royalties owed to people in one of the poorest regions of the state.

Gilbert called the award "a hell of an honor" and said it underscores the importance of public service reporting in rural areas.

A prize for investigative reporting also went to the Philadelphia Daily News for exposing a rogue police narcotics squad.

The Seattle Times staff was honored in the breaking news category for its coverage of the shooting deaths of four police officers in a coffee shop.

"It's hard to absorb," said Steve Miletich, one of the reporters who worked on the shooting story. "It was a team effort. We're all really honored by it. We set out to inform the community about a really tragic event at a time they really needed it."

The Pulitzer for local reporting went to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a series of stories on fraud and abuse in a child-care program for poor working parents.

The Dallas Morning News won for editorial writing.

The Des Moines Register won for breaking-news photography for capturing a rescuer trying to save a woman trapped beneath a dam, and the Denver Post was honored for feature photography for a portrait of a teenager who joined the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq.

The Washington Post's award for international reporting went to Anthony Shadid for what the Pulitzer board called "his rich, beautifully written series" on Iraq as the U.S. military gets ready to withdraw. Shadid has since left the Post for The New York Times.

The newspaper's Gene Weingarten won in feature writing for what the board called a "haunting" story on parents who accidentally kill their children by leaving them in cars.

The Post also won in commentary for Kathleen Parker's witty columns on political and moral issues, and in criticism, for Sarah Kaufman's writing on dance.

The New York Times won for national reporting for a series of stories in print and online on distracted driving, and for explanatory reporting for writing about the dangers of contaminated hamburger and defects in federal food-safety regulations.

Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said collaborations of the new and the old -- such as the one between ProPublica and The New York Times -- could become more common.

"Collaboration is something we are going to see much more of," he said. "The mythical body of journalists has been so decimated we are going to see all kinds of creative ways to get more juice. What's interesting about it is it's a way of building a bridge between the old school and new school."

The Pulitzers are the most prestigious awards in journalism and are given out annually by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of distinguished journalists and others. Each award carries a $10,000 prize except for the public service award, which is a gold medal.

[Associated Press; By DEEPTI HAJELA]

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