Ganim / Patriot-News Win Pulitzer for Sandusky / PSU Coverage

This reminded me that my brother used to listen to the fire department scanner every night when I was a little kid. He's now a lieutenant and has been a fireman for 20 years. I envy people like him and Sara Ganim who get to do for a living the one thing they always dreamed of.

 

Congrats to Sara and everyone who worked with her on a huge story. Nice to see a "smaller" paper get some well-earned Pulitzer recognition.

 

Taking nothing away from Sara, or her reporting, but since this Prize is for local reporting, doesn't it usually go to a smaller paper?

Is there a list of previous winners of this particular Prize available?

 

I think the Pulitzer website has the list of all previous winners.

 

Let me get that for you.

 

That shit is gold. I give you the Pulitzer for Message Board Funny Storytelling. Oh, that doesn't exist? Well, I still laughed.

 

This ^^ Times 10. What a fantastic honor for Sara and everyone at the paper who supported her. There had to be some tense editorial moments concerning what she kept finding through dogged reporting, but her bosses obviously believed in and backed her. That doesn't always happen in the newspaper world (or any corporate world, really).

As for how she or anyone dressed in the celebratory photos -- sigh. Can't believe that's actually a topic, so I will say I dig her red shoes.

Here's a nice piece from Glamour magazine about her work ethic, and how she basically just started knocking on doors:
http://www.glamour.com/inspired/magazine/2012/02/meet-the-woman-who-exposed-jerry-sandusky

 

Since the Local Reporting award was re-instituted after a five-decade hiatus, these papers have won since 2007:
Miami Herald 2007
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 2008
East Valley Tribune 2009
Detroit Free Press 2009
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 2010
Chicago Sun-Times 2011

And from 1948-1952, it was all big papers.

Finalists since 2007 have included papers big and small.
http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Local-Reporting

 

Glad to see her and her newspaper reaped their just rewards for their brilliant coverage. Talk about your rock stars. And all because she had the work ethic and guts to see things through. That should be a lesson for all of us on the board.

 

Look, $10,000 is nice, but the guild minimum salary at the Times is in the mid-$80,000 range. I bet that's double what she's making now.

She's going to find her way elsewhere eventually and that's going to be great when it happens, but I doubt leaving TOMORROW is a priority. It would be nice if she got to enjoy this for a minute too. I suspect she is.

 

The story isn't complete, right? This still has not totally played out.

If I was her, the last story I would write before I moved on, would be about Sandusky's first day in jail after the guilty verdict is given.