Pulitzer Winners Unveiled

Coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath dominated this year's Pulitzer Prizes, with two Gulf Coast newspapers earning gold medals for public service.

The winners and finalists were announced yesterday afternoon at a press conference at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. Pulitzer administrator Sig Gissler conducted the press conference in the Joseph Pulitzer World Room, which is named after the school's founder and the namesake of journalism's most prestigious awards. The winners are decided by a board of distinguished figures in journalism and at the University, including President Lee Bollinger.

In a rare occurrence, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., shared the public service award, commonly considered the highest honor a newspaper can earn. It is just the sixth time in the Pulitzer's 90-year history that two papers have won that award.

"The board chose to recognize extraordinary work by two papers of different sizes," Gissler said.

In another unusual move, the Pulitzer board awarded The Times-Picayune two different prizes-public service and breaking news reporting-for its hurricane coverage. That feat has been accomplished only once before: the New York Times won the public service and explanatory reporting categories in 2002 for its coverage of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Gissler noted that The Times-Picayune was able to "display its full resources" in the public service category, while the breaking news entrant may only submit 10 articles.

The day's biggest winner was The Washington Post, which netted four awards-the most in its history. The newspaper won the investigative reporting, explanatory reporting, beat reporting, and criticism categories. The New York Times won three awards: national reporting, international reporting, and commentary, while the Rocky Mountain News won two, for feature writing and feature photography.

For the seventh time since 1917, two national reporting prizes were awarded. The Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau won for their stories about governmental wiretapping, and The San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service won jointly for their investigation of the bribe-taking that landed former U.S. Representative Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.) in prison.

"The watchdog function of the media was quite present this year in terms of exposing wrongdoing," Gissler said.

In the prizes for letters and drama, the board chose to confer two special citations. Edmund S. Morgan, a professor emeritus of history at Yale, and late jazz pianist and composer Thelonius Monk were honored for lifetime achievement. No prize was awarded in the drama category after none of the three finalists earned a majority vote.

University President Lee Bollinger will award the prizes on May 22 in Low Library.