Pulitzer roundup: A year full of changing ground and big surprises

HuffPo won a Pulitzer! And so did Politico! 2011 may become a watershed year for online journalism, as for-profit online news organizations finally took a bite out of the news industry’s most prestigious prize. The Huffington Post, known as the kings of aggregation, won for a fairly traditional piece for them — reporter David Wood’s ten-part story discussing the struggles of returning veterans. (Wood is shown above, trying to open up a Nattie Light, which clearly is the only beer HuffPo had on hand to celebrate his feat.) Politico, on the other hand, won for Matt Wuerker’s mad editorial cartooning skillz. The wins tell the journalism world what many already knew — the folks on the Web are at the same level as traditional newspapers. Anyway, here’s a round-up of a few newspaper winners of note:

• one At age 24 and just out of college, the Harrisburg Patriot-News’ Sara Ganim won a Pulitzer for local reporting — she was the first to report details on the Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State.
• two The Stranger, a snarky Seattle weekly known for advice columnist Dan Savage, won a Pulitzer for Eli Sanders’ story about a woman who survived a brutal rape.
• three Despite a tough time for the paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer won a public service Pulitzer for its “Assault on Learning” series, which tackled school violence.
• four The Tuscaloosa News kept readers informed online, despite a tornado which stopped their presses and destroyed homes. For that, they won a Breaking News Pulitzer. source

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