First Pulitzer For 'Blade' Goes Far Beyond Toledo

By: Joe Strupp It may be a bit surprising that the first Pulitzer Prize won by The Blade of Toledo, Ohio -- known as one of the nation's strongest regional newspapers -- was awarded for an international war scandal dating back more than 30 years.

But when the annual journalism awards were announced Monday, The Blade (Click for QuikCap) picked up the investigative reporting prize for its highly acclaimed Tiger Force series, which ran last fall, already collected numerous awards, and is being turned into a book.

"I was surprised, but I thought we had a pretty good chance," said Joe Mahr, who along with fellow reporters Michael D. Sallah and Mitch Weiss won the prize. "You never know."

The series uncovered a four-and-a-half year government investigation into the actions of a platoon of soldiers from the elite 101st Airborne known as Tiger Force who allegedly killed and mutilated dozens of Vietnamese civilians during a seven-month period in 1967. The investigation concluded that at least 18 soldiers committed war crimes, according to editors -- but nothing was ever publicly disclosed, no charges were filed, and the documents had remained classified since 1975.

The Blade's investigation, adding to the military's findings, and based on interviews with Tiger Force soldiers and Vietnamese civilians, concluded that the unit killed hundreds of unarmed people.

The paper's reporting began when The Blade's Washington bureau -- which it shares with its sister Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- in February 2003 came across classified documents related to an official U.S. Army investigation into the 1967 slaughtering of civilians in the Vietnamese village. Editors thought the information was worth pursuing. Eight months later, after the reporters and a photographer dug into the story using interviews with Army veterans and made visits to the village, the resulting series ended up being one of The Blade's most prominent efforts ever.

Sallah said the reporters eventually reviewed more than 1,200 pages of documents.

"We saw how the military could take a four-and-a half-year investigation with 100 agents, substantiate the cases, and then bury it," said Sallah. "If it could happen then, it could happen now."

The paper published the series over several days in October 2003. It was later picked up, at least in part, by The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The Washington Times, and others. U.S. Army officials, meanwhile, began a new review of the investigation, but have yet to issue any new findings on the matter, reporters said.

The Blade would not reveal how much was spent on the series, but deemed it important enough to expend extensive resources.

"It was extremely difficult, extremely controversial and no one has ever called us up to say we had made a mistake," said Blade Executive Editor Ron Royhab. "We felt that what we found and reported was very significant."

Reporters acknowledged that they were under heavier scrutiny because the reporting and publication of the story occurred at a time when the U.S. was involved in the Iraq War and post-war occupation. "You are aware that you want to support the troops [in Iraq]," Sallah said. "But you can't ignore [the story]."

Mahr added that the Pulitzer gives more credibility to the series, which he said some might have written off because it did not come from The New York Times or The Washington Post. "People who said 'this is the Toledo Blade, these are crackpots,' will have to take a second look," he said.

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