Pulitzer Winner Was Laid Off

Spitzer scandal among winners in rare bright spot for newspaper

(AP) - The New York Times received five Pulitzer Prizes today, including one for breaking the call-girl scandal that destroyed Gov. Eliot Spitzer's career. The Las Vegas Sun won for public service for exposing a high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip. America's top journalism awards were announced after one of the most depressing years the newspaper industry has ever seen. More»

Huffington Post, AP, Philadelphia Inquirer , NYT all score prizes

(NEWSER) - The 2012 Pulitzer Prizes are out, and for the first time in 35 years a Pulitzer for fiction is not among them, reports the AP , which itself snagged an award for its series on NYPD spying. Without further ado, the list of winners:

• Public service: Philadelphia Inquirer
• Breaking news reporting: The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News staff
• Investigative reporting: Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley of the AP, and Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of the Seattle Times
• Explanatory reporting: David Kocieniewski of the New York Times

And the future is looking bleak, say economists

(NEWSER) - Layoffs have climbed to their highest level in nearly a year—1.78 million workers were handed pink slips in May, the most since August 2010—increasing ever-present fears about the US economy. The Wall Street Journal highlights the latest casualties: Cisco Systems plans to slash 6,500 jobs; Lockheed Martin this week made a voluntary lay-off offer to 6,500; Goldman Sachs is getting rid of 1,000 jobs; even Cracker Barrel cut 60 employees. More»

They're weightless 'footnotes,' not 'headlines': Jack Shafer

(NEWSER) - The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism are awarded today, but they don’t mean a thing, writes Jack Shafer. “I doubt that one newspaper reader in 10,000 could tell you a day after the Pulitzers are awarded who got the prize for explanatory reporting,” he notes in a 2004 piece, reprinted in Slate today. And that’s just fine: “In a perfect world, the prizes would be treated as footnotes rather than the stuff of headlines.” More»

Edwards exposé a shoo-in for glory—but not for tabloid

(NEWSER) - By any sane measure, the unmasking of John Edwards as a philanderer who knocked up his mistress while his wife battled cancer was one of the all-time great scoops—except in determining the winners of yesterday's Pulitzer Prizes for journalism. "The media elite circled the wagons to exclude the scrappy, self-proclaimed supermarket tabloid," Emily Miller writes for the Washington Times . More»