The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., with a staff of 80 and a daily circulation of 85,000, won the most prestigious of the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism awarded on Monday for a series on the high number of deaths resulting from domestic abuse in the state.
The series, titled “Till Death Do Us Part,” was awarded the gold medal for public service that went, last year, to The Washington Post and The Guardian for their articles based on National Security Agency documents leaked by the former government contractor Edward J. Snowden. It is the first time in five years that the prize has gone to such a small newspaper.
The New York Times won the prize for investigative reporting, for a series by Eric Lipton on aggressive efforts by lobbyists and lawyers to push state attorneys general to drop investigations, change policies, negotiate favorable settlements or pressure federal regulators to benefit their clients. It shared the prize with The Wall Street Journal, which won its first Pulitzer in recent years for a project that revealed to Americans previously confidential data “on the motivations and practices of their health care providers.”
The Times’s Pulitzers:
Investigative Reporting
"Courting Favor" by Eric Lipton
International Reporting
The Ebola Epidemic in Africa
Feature Photography
Daniel Berehulak on the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa
The Times won two other prizes. The photographer Daniel Berehulak won the award for feature photography for a series of poignant portraits, shot across months, documenting Ebola’s deadly spread in West Africa. And the paper’s staff won for “courageous front-line reporting and vivid human stories on Ebola in Africa.”
The Los Angeles Times won two Pulitzers. Diana Marcum won the feature writing prize for her stories from the Central Valley of California on how the state’s drought affected the lives of residents. The newspaper also won the criticism prize, for Mary McNamara’s writings on television and culture.
Bloomberg News won its first Pulitzer, for explanatory journalism. It went to Zachary R. Mider, for his reporting on how American corporations dodge taxes and get away with it. The Seattle Times won the breaking news award, for its account of a deadly landslide, and for its follow-up reporting.
The Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to Anthony Doerr’s best-selling historical novel, “All the Light We Cannot See,” which unfolds in Europe during World War II, and follows a blind French girl who joins the resistance movement and an orphaned German boy who gets swept up in the Nazi occupation. Mr. Doerr’s novel was a finalist for the National Book Award.
In general nonfiction, the prize went to Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction,” which explores how climate change is accelerating the mass extinction of species. The drama prize went to “Between Riverside and Crazy” by Stephen Adly Guirgis.
The series by The Post and Courier, its executive editor Mitch Pugh said in an interview, began when reporters saw annual statistics which ranked South Carolina as the state where the most women killed by men. “The discussion around the table in the newsroom was why is that,” Mr. Pugh said. “We’ve written about it every year, but we’ve never done that
That
prompted an eight-month investigation, driven by a body of data that sought to establish what the deaths might have in common. “This series,” he said, “has made women’s lives in South Carolina better and safer.” The State Legislature has fast-tracked legislation that seeks to remedy the problems the newspaper identified, he said.
The prize for breaking news photography went to the staff of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch for “powerful images of the despair and anger in Ferguson,” following the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, last summer. The shooting prompted protests that roiled the area for weeks.
Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post won the award for national reporting, for a series of stories on the security lapses of the Secret Service.
The Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif., won the local reporting prize for their coverage of corruption in a small school district.
The commentary prize went to Lisa Falkenberg of The Houston Chronicle for her columns on grand jury abuses. The prize for editorial writing was awarded to Kathleen Kingsbury of The Boston Globe for exploring income inequality through the lives of restaurant workers. Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News won for editorial cartooning.
There were roughly 1200 journalism entries, Mike Pride, the Pulitzer administrator, said in announcing the awards, which are now in their 99th year. There were also 1,400 books, 200 music compositions and 100 plays considered. Two categories, investigative reporting and feature writing, were opened to magazines this year, which prompted 60 additional entries; Jennifer Gonnerman was a finalist in the feature category, for an article she wrote for The New Yorker.
Here is the complete list of winners:
Public Service — The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C.
Breaking News Reporting — The staff of The Seattle Times
Investigative Reporting — Eric Lipton, The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal
Explanatory Reporting — Zachary R. Mider of Bloomberg News
Local Reporting — Rob Kuznia, Rebecca Kimitch and Frank Suraci of The Daily Breeze, Torrance, Calif.
National Reporting — Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post
International Reporting — The staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing — Diana Marcum of The Los Angeles Times
Commentary — Lisa Falkenberg of The Houston Chronicle
Criticism — Mary McNamara of The Los Angeles Times
Editorial Writing — Kathleen Kingsbury of The Boston Globe
Editorial Cartooning — Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News
Breaking News Photography — St. Louis Post-Dispatch photography staff
Feature Photography — Daniel Berehulak of The New York Times
Fiction — “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr
General Nonfiction — “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert
Drama — “Between Riverside and Crazy” by Stephen Adly Guirgis
History — “Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People” by Elizabeth A. Fenn
Biography or Autobiography — “The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe” by David I. Kertzer
Poetry — “Digest” by Gregory Pardlo
Music — “Anthracite Fields” by Julia Wolfe
New York Times
