Our Annual Pulitzer Preview: Who Might Takes A Prize?

By: Joe Strupp Handicapping the Pulitzer Prizes is always a bit of a crapshoot. Especially this year with no dominating catastrophes, unless you count the economy, of course.

That issue actually could see one or more awards with the likes of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or Washington Post -- or other major dailies -- battling for supremacy. But, at the same time, many have criticized press coverage of the economy leading up to last fall's crisis. The other major story of 2008, of course, was the presidential election.

The preliminary awards competitions settled already this year did not provide many consensus picks. Still, with the Pulitzer jurors preparing to meet next week in New York to choose finalists in the 14 journalism categories, we will attempt to highlight those that appear to be frontrunners.

LOCAL

-- Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick of the Detroit Free Press seem likely finalists and potential winners for their coverage of the Detroit mayor's scandal, in which Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was forced from office and sentenced to jail time on two felonies. The Free Press reporters obtained text messages and other evidence that led to the mayor's downfall. Their work has already earned them a George Polk Award, a Shorenstein Goldsmith Prize finalist nod and a secondary mention in the USC Annenberg School's Selden Ring Award competition.

-- Selden Ring winners Sandra Peddie and Eden Laikin of Newsday are also in contention for their uncovering of special government district corruption on Long Island.

-- Another in-depth report already garnering multiple awards notice is The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer's investigation into the local poultry industry. The five-person team that investigated how a local company ignored and threatened injured workers led to congressional hearings, a federal investigation and penalties to the company.

The Observer has also garnered a Goldsmith finalist honor and an American Society of Newspaper Editors award. Look for the paper's series in any of several categories, including investigative, local and public service.

-- Another local news competitor is the Omaha World-Herald, which took an ASNE award for its coverage of a deadly tornado that killed four Boy Scouts.

NATIONAL

-- Former Pulitzer winner David Barstow of The New York Times looks to challenge for the national reporting prize for his "Message Machine" coverage that uncovered the practice of using former high-ranking military officers as broadcast commentators who had ties to the Bush Administration and defense contractors. Barstow's work has already resulted in a George Polk Award and a Goldsmith Prize finalist mention.

INTERNATIONAL

-- International reporting finds several worthy candidates that have already received notice. Also from The New York Times are Barry Bearak and Celia Dugger, who won a George Polk Award for risky coverage of violence in Zimbabwe. Paul Salopek of the Chicago Tribune, a two-time Pulitzer winner, garnered his own Polk honor for coverage of the United States efforts to fight terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

-- Tom Lasseter and Matthew Schofield of McClatchy Newspapers are likely to receive recognition for their in-depth four-part series on torture at Guantanamo Bay. It included some eight months of reporting and interviews with 66 former detainees.

THIS AND THAT

-- Two Washington Post series in the running include Debbie Cenziper and Sara Cohen's "Forced Out" investigation that revealed how local landlords drove tenants from rent-controlled apartments. It is a Goldsmith finalist. There is also the paper's 12-part series on Chandra Levy, which many believe prompted the recent attention on a suspect named in the report. If he is charged, look for the jurors to take note.

-- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has already gotten notice for its six-part series on toxins in everyday products and the failure of regulatory agencies to monitor them. "Chemical Fallout" has received a Polk Award and the 2008 John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, given by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which also hands out the Pulitzers.

--On the feature front, Joanna Connors of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, who already took an ASNE prize, appears a frontrunner for her revelations about being raped 20 years ago, and her search for the suspect. (It nabbed a top prize in our own Photos of the Year contest.)

-- The editorial cartoonists category has a history of citing the same pool of candidates as either finalists or winners in recent years. The last three winners, Michael Ramirez, Mike Luckovich and Walt Handelsman, had each won previously. Other regular finalists or winners to look for are Clay Bennett, David Horsey, Mike Thompson and Nick Anderson. Of course, with at least 14 daily newspapers dropping their editorial cartoonists in the past year, the pool decreases even more.

-- Commentary is always a difficult one because so many worthy writers compete and many are chosen based on a handful of pieces during a particularly good year. This category often sees winners come from the pool of recent finalists. Witness Cynthia Tucker and Nicholas Kristof in the past few years.

That could mean a Joe Nocera of the New York Times or Chris Rose of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans may pull ahead after being finalists. A recent growing favorite is Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post Writers Group. Another name thrown into the hat is Paul Krugman of The New York Times, who has never even been a finalist, but who received international fame in 2008 when he won a Nobel Prize in economics. Given the ongoing economic crisis, that could prove timely. And Gail Collins of the same paper has provided one witty column after another.

WEB ONLY

Also likely to at least garner a finalist spot, are the handful of Web-only news outlets in the running. With a change in Pulitzer rules this fall, Web sites that report original news at least weekly and have no link to broadcast or non-newspaper print publications are eligible.

At least five such outlets have told E&P they had entered work. Those include the St. Louis Beacon, Voice of San Diego, MinnPost.com, ProPublica, and the Center for Independent Media, which runs news sites in six states. At least one of those sites has an editor who will serve on a Pulitzer jury next week.

Scott Lewis, CEO of Voice of San Diego, has said his Web site, launched in 2005, entered one report on two local redevelopment agencies in the local reporting category.

MinnPost.com, meanwhile, has five entries, which include reports on segregated schools, the Franken-Coleman Senate election recount, female combat troops in Iraq, problems with the state attorney general's office, and a MinnPost columnist

The Center for Independent Media, offered three submissions from the Washington (D.C.) Independent; one each from the Minnesota Independent and Iowa Independent, and one that was a joint project involving all of the sites on voter fraud and disqualifications.