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Newspaper Guild-CWA Journalists Win Coveted Pulitzer Prize
Five reporters represented by The Newspaper Guild-CWA, whose recent work ranged from exposing the scandalous lack of attention to worker safety to long-buried secrets of Vietnam and the tragedies in Iraq, have been named recipients of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.
The winners were New York Times reporter David Barstow of TNG-CWA Local 31003, Toledo (Ohio) Blade reporters Michael Sallah, Mitch Weiss and Joe Mahr of Local 34043 and Washington Post war correspondent Anthony Shadid of Local 32035.
Barstow was honored in the public service category for his work on two three-part series, "Dangerous Business" and "When Workers Die." The pieces exposed safety violations in American factories that contributed to workers' deaths and injuries, and looked at employers' virtual immunity from consequences for violating safety rules.
"Every one of their deaths was a potential crime. Workers decapitated on assembly lines, shredded in machinery, burned beyond recognition, electrocuted, buried alive - all of them killed, investigators concluded, because their employers willfully violated workplace safety laws," Barstow began one of the winning articles, revealing that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated 1,242 such horror stories between 1982 and 2002, yet declined to prosecute in 93 percent of the cases.
The Toledo Blade trio won for investigative reporting, the first Pulitzer in the paper's history, for a series of articles documenting the Vietnam War atrocities committed by Tiger Force, an elite Army unit that killed dozens of unarmed civilians, and possibly many more. Working on a tip from a former Army colonel, they unearthed more than 1,000 classified documents and interviewed former Tiger Force soldiers who had carried their secrets for decades.
"For seven months, Tiger Force soldiers moved across the Central Highlands, killing scores of unarmed civilians - in some cases torturing and mutilating them - in a spate of violence never revealed to the American public," their story read. "They dropped grenades into underground bunkers where women and children were hiding - creating mass graves - and shot unarmed civilians, in some cases as they begged for their lives. They frequently tortured and shot prisoners, severing ears and scalps for souvenirs."
Shadid, who speaks fluent Arabic and was shot and wounded two years ago while covering the West Bank, won in the international reporting category for coverage of Iraq. The Pulitzer judges hailed his "extraordinary ability to capture, at personal peril, the voices and emotions of Iraqis" before, during and since the American invasion. Among his stories, he interviewed a father in Thuluya, Iraq, who had been forced by villagers to kill his son, whom they suspected of spying for the Americans.
"Two hours before the dawn call to prayer, in a village still shrouded in silence, Sabah Kerbul's executioners arrived," Shadid wrote last August. "His father carried an AK-47 assault rifle, as did his brother. And with barely a word spoken, they led the man accused by the village of working as an informer for the Americans behind a house girded with fig trees, vineyards and orange groves. His father raised his rifle and aimed it at his oldest son."
The winners were New York Times reporter David Barstow of TNG-CWA Local 31003, Toledo (Ohio) Blade reporters Michael Sallah, Mitch Weiss and Joe Mahr of Local 34043 and Washington Post war correspondent Anthony Shadid of Local 32035.
Barstow was honored in the public service category for his work on two three-part series, "Dangerous Business" and "When Workers Die." The pieces exposed safety violations in American factories that contributed to workers' deaths and injuries, and looked at employers' virtual immunity from consequences for violating safety rules.
"Every one of their deaths was a potential crime. Workers decapitated on assembly lines, shredded in machinery, burned beyond recognition, electrocuted, buried alive - all of them killed, investigators concluded, because their employers willfully violated workplace safety laws," Barstow began one of the winning articles, revealing that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated 1,242 such horror stories between 1982 and 2002, yet declined to prosecute in 93 percent of the cases.
The Toledo Blade trio won for investigative reporting, the first Pulitzer in the paper's history, for a series of articles documenting the Vietnam War atrocities committed by Tiger Force, an elite Army unit that killed dozens of unarmed civilians, and possibly many more. Working on a tip from a former Army colonel, they unearthed more than 1,000 classified documents and interviewed former Tiger Force soldiers who had carried their secrets for decades.
"For seven months, Tiger Force soldiers moved across the Central Highlands, killing scores of unarmed civilians - in some cases torturing and mutilating them - in a spate of violence never revealed to the American public," their story read. "They dropped grenades into underground bunkers where women and children were hiding - creating mass graves - and shot unarmed civilians, in some cases as they begged for their lives. They frequently tortured and shot prisoners, severing ears and scalps for souvenirs."
Shadid, who speaks fluent Arabic and was shot and wounded two years ago while covering the West Bank, won in the international reporting category for coverage of Iraq. The Pulitzer judges hailed his "extraordinary ability to capture, at personal peril, the voices and emotions of Iraqis" before, during and since the American invasion. Among his stories, he interviewed a father in Thuluya, Iraq, who had been forced by villagers to kill his son, whom they suspected of spying for the Americans.
"Two hours before the dawn call to prayer, in a village still shrouded in silence, Sabah Kerbul's executioners arrived," Shadid wrote last August. "His father carried an AK-47 assault rifle, as did his brother. And with barely a word spoken, they led the man accused by the village of working as an informer for the Americans behind a house girded with fig trees, vineyards and orange groves. His father raised his rifle and aimed it at his oldest son."