The Pulitzers Live! Washington Post Sweeps With Six Prizes; Times Gets Two, Globe One

John Koblin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:59:32 -0400

We're moments away from the Pulitzer announcements, and we've sent our intern, Matt Townsend, to document the strictly no-frills scene at the Columbia Journalism School. Here's his account:

2:37: I'm at the Joseph Pulitzer World Room. There are two people in the seats so far.

2:47: At the back of the room there's a fold-out table with a white tablecloth with coffee, tea and assortment of store-bought cookies. There are a few more journalists here now and there are two camera crews - one from AP and the other from a Russian TV station. The cookies are pretty good.

2:52: The cookies are chocolate chip, sugar, peanut butter and almond.

2:55: Alexey Veselovskiy is a correspondent for NTV. He's here hanging out with with another Russian TV outlet called Ria News and print reporter from a Russian wire service. That reporter said he wasn't surprised so many Russian journalists are here because Pulitizer was Russian and this is a big deal. Okay!

2:57: Joe Strupp from Editor & Publisher said he's been coming for eight years and it's one of the biggest crowds he's ever seen.

2:58: There are about 20 people here.

3:01: They just handed out the press packets with the winners and there was a mad dash to pick one up in the corner of the room. It's sort of like Bush v. Gore!

3:03: Sig Gissler is coming back in 15 minutes to read off the list and take questions. The PR person here said he had to do something related to the awards first.

3:18: And the winners are:

PUBLIC SERVICE

The Washington Post

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING

The Washington Post Staff

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of The New York Times

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

The Chicago Tribune Staff

EXPLANATORY REPORTING

Amy Harmon of The New York Times

LOCAL REPORTING