79th Annual Pulitzer Prizes p.17

By: Tony Case and Dorothy Giobbe

Tiny Virgin Islands Daily News wins for public service;
Associated Press, Newsday, Washington Post
and Wall Street Journal get two awards each sp.

IN A YEAR in which major metropolitan newspapers dominated the Pulitzer Prizes, the tiny Virgin Islands Daily News captured the contest's coveted public service gold medal.
The 15,000-circulation Gannett paper was cited for disclosing links between the island's rampant crime rate and corruption in its criminal justice system. The reporting, largely the work of Melvin Claxton, initiated substantial reforms.
"We weren't trying to win an award," said Daily News city editor Marilynn Bailey, noting this was the first time the 65-year-old paper ? which has a 21-person news staff ? had entered the competition. "The motivation was purely, purely to right a wrong in the community."
The 79th Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music, awarded on the recommendation of the Pulitzer board, were announced this week by Columbia University president George Rupp.
The Associated Press, Newsday, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post each won two awards this year.
AP was recognized for international reporting and feature photography; Newsday for investigative reporting and commentary; the Journal for national reporting and feature writing; and the Post for explanatory journalism and spot news photography.
AP has earned Pulitzers for photography in four of the past five years. It now has won a total of 39 of the prizes.
Other winners were the Atlanta Constitution for editorial cartooning; Boston Globe for beat reporting; Los Angeles Times for spot news reporting; New York Times for criticism; and St. Petersburg Times for editorial writing.
The New York Times has collected 70 Pulitzers to date, a record.
The Los Angeles Times and Newsday are Times Mirror Co. papers. The Boston Globe and New York Times are New York Times Co. properties. Cox Newspapers owns the Constitution.
Although this was the first win for the Daily News, the parent company, Gannett Co., has garnered 41 Pulitzers.
Each prize carries a $3,000 cash award, except for the public service honor, whose winner gets a gold medal. Winners of the journalism Pulitzers, as well as finalists in each category, follow:
Public Service

Why had St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, seen such a staggering increase in the rate of violent crime in the past few years?
"V.I. Crime: Who's to Blame?" ? a series stemming from six months of scrutinizing prosecutors, the police department, the courts, the prisons and the juvenile justice system ? revealed that of the 25,000 violent crimes reported in the years 1989 through 1993, only 1,400 went to court. Roughly half of those were dismissed before trial.
The Daily News found rampant incompetence in police practices, as well as blatant corruption.
Claxton, the sole reporter on the story, related in an interview that "everybody and his uncle" had access to a police evidence room.
Convicted criminals came and went as they pleased. Some made off with firearms; one person stole $1 million worth of cocaine.
After the story was published, the police commissioner, attorney general and several police officers were fired.
Other finalists in this category were the Charlotte Observer, for examining the city's declining inner-city neighborhoods, proposing improvements and helping to organize citizens to ward off further deterioration; and the Philadelphia Inquirer, for reporting on fraudulent practices in a local election, bringing about the overturn of the election and the reform of many of the city's electoral practices.

Spot News Reporting

The Los Angeles Times took the Pulitzer for spot news reporting, for detailing the chaos and devastation in the aftermath of last year's Northridge earthquake.
Shelby Coffey III, the paper's editor and executive vice president, called the win "a great victory for teamwork at the Times."
He noted the daunting circumstances that faced the paper's employees in the wee hours of Jan. 17, 1994 ? no electricity, no phone service, no computers, and only one of the Times' three printing plants in operating order.
Still, managers were able to follow through on a contingency plan, coordinate coverage ? and publish a newspaper the following day.
"Even with all the difficulty, we managed to get out an extraordinary edition," Coffey said, noting that the paper on Jan. 18 carried human interest stories, a section on how to cope with the earthquake, and even some early investigative reporting that began to examine why freeway overpasses had so easily collapsed.
Also nominated were the New York Times, for coverage of the city's police department as it was rocked by charges of corruption in a Harlem precinct; and Denver's Rocky Mountain News, for reports on a deadly wildfire that took the lives of 14 firefighters, the worst disaster of its kind in Colorado's history.

Investigative Reporting

Newsday's Brian Donovan and Stephanie Saul earned the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, for a series, "Cops on Disability," that revealed pension abuses by local police.
The reporters discovered that many officers on disability, earning upwards of $75,000 tax-free, had taken new jobs ? some with other law enforcement agencies ? and pursued rather strenuous hobbies, such as weight lifting.
"It's sort of frustrating ? particularly in a time of budget cutting, when welfare mothers are losing their benefits ? to see people who clearly aren't deserving get this kind of windfall every year," Saul said in an interview after winning the Pulitzer.
Newsday's project led to reform efforts by the state comptroller. But, Saul lamented, none of the cops exposed in the series had their disputed pensions taken away.
Saul related that she and Donovan got their stories through "old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting" ? following subjects around in cars, poring over private medical reports.
"If it hadn't been for confidential sources who were willing to give us these records, and who put their livelihoods on the line," Saul noted, "we wouldn't have been able to do this story."
Newsday's feat was all the more impressive, considering the current assault on reporter's privilege and the epidemic of subpoenas sweeping the journalism profession, the newswoman observed.
"If the public wants this kind of reporting, they should let their public officials know it's important for reporters to have this kind of privilege," she said. "And the journalism community should really get on the bandwagon about this."
Other finalists were Dave Davis and Joan Mazzolini from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, for a series on abuses by Ohio doctors and hospitals, which resulted in reforms in the state's regulatory system; and Keith A. Harriston and Mary Pat Flaherty with the Washington Post, for articles that exposed careless hiring, training and disciplinary procedures within the District of Columbia police department.