The Guardian and Washington Post win the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2014-Public-Service

by danso • 12 years ago

455 41 12 years ago

subdane• 12 years ago

The awards are for breaking the Snowden secret surveilance revelations.

danso3• 12 years ago

Journalism geekery: the "Public Service" award is often considered the best of the Pulitzers, partly because it is relatively equally distributed among smaller, lesser-known organizations as well as the big organizations...so it's sort of a implicit statement on how great journalism shouldn't be dependent on market size and staff resources.

So when a big organization like the Washington Post, and the Guardian US, win it, that's a strong statement. They could've just as likely been given the National or Investigative reporting awards.

(also, unlike the other prizes, there is no cash prize for the Public Service award)

The WaPo has won it before, including for Watergate and the Walter Reed investigation: http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Public-Service

etiam• 12 years ago

In terms of importance, I think this was practically a given, but I've seen statements from people doubting if the Pulitzer Prize Board would have the courage to make a decision that still wouldn't sit well with certain powerful people.

Turns out they did. I'm very pleased to see that. Congratulations to the winners!

swombat2• 12 years ago

Glad to see they didn't pull a TIME magazine...

willvarfar• 12 years ago

(please explain?)

spacefight• 12 years ago

This is great news and well deserved. I hope that the price strongly motivates those in charge at either news company to press on with their coverage.

hpriebe• 12 years ago

Interesting to see that the runner up - Newsday - was selected for using digital tools to expose shootings, beatings and other concealed misconduct by some Long Island police officers. This highlights the increasingly complimentary role of digital tools and traditional reporting.

Anyone know what kind of digital tools they used?

Anyone know of other digital tools journalists/the press use to investigate/uncover content?

danso3• 12 years ago

Data journalism geek here: All sorts of tools, but really, Excel and Access are adequate enough to be game-changers...this is because data has no standardized form when you get to local jurisdictions.

Jeremy Singer-Vine, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, was named a Pulitzer finalist for National Reporting this year (http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/2014?):

John Emshwiller and Jeremy Singer-Vine of The Wall Street Journal - For their reports and searchable database on the nation’s often overlooked factories and research centers that once produced nuclear weapons and now pose contamination risks.

HNers may remember some of Jeremy's stuff recently making the front page, including:

Reverse Engineering xkcd's Frequency: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7290868

Txtbirds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4763147

001sky• 12 years ago

Excel and Access are adequate enough to be game-changers

Without doubting your point here, do you think access to data is driving the underlying ability to leverage these tools? Or is it just people have now started to look harder at the problems with an analytic toolkit in mind?

jwr• 12 years ago

...while Edward Snowden, the source of all the information they published, is being hunted down and prosecuted.

Hmm.

orky56• 12 years ago

Reporting what was discovered and obtaining such information are separate actions that deserve their own consequences. It doesn't automatically make it right nor does it automatically make it wrong.

lawnchair_larry• 12 years ago

So I guess Glenn Greenwald is officially a journalist.

dublinben• 12 years ago

Greenwald isn't named in the award announcement. He'll still be listed as a blogger in the traditional press.

dobbsbob• 12 years ago

No love for Der Spiegel?

abat• 12 years ago

Pulitzers are US only. Technically, The Guardian US (and not UK) won.

e15ctr0n• 12 years ago

The full list of winners[0] and runners-up[1] is available on pulitzer.org.

[0] http://www.pulitzer.org/node/8501

[1] http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/2014

The Guardian and Washington Post win the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

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