Nine TNG-CWA Members Win Pulitzers

Nine members of TNG-CWA at the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Rocky Mountain News in Denver are among the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winners for outstanding print journalism.

The Guild winners include nationally syndicated columnist Nicholas Kristof of the Times, who has repeatedly risked his life sneaking across African borders to war-torn villages to report on the savagery of the Darfur genocide. The prize for commentary is Kristof's second Pulitzer.

Kristof and the Times' other winners, reporters James Risen, Eric Lichtblau and Joseph Kahn, are members of TNG-CWA Local 31003.

Risen and Lichtblau won for national reporting for what the Pulitzer judges called "carefully sourced stories on secret domestic eavesdropping that stirred a national debate on the boundary line between fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberty." Kahn won for international reporting for stories about China's uneven justice system.

At the Post, Dana Priest won for "her persistent, painstaking reports on secret 'black site' prisons and other controversial features of the government's counter-terrorism campaign." David Finkel won for explanatory reporting for "his ambitious, clear-eyed case study of the United States government's attempt to bring democracy to Yemen." Susan Schmidt and two other Post reporters won for investigative reporting for uncovering abuses by Jack Abramoff, a former Republican lobbyist who has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy.

Priest, Finkel and Schmidt are members of TNG-CWA Local 32035.

Denver's winners were a reporter and photographer who together told the poignant story of a Marine major who helps families of fallen troops cope with their loss. Reporter Jim Sheeler and photographer Todd Heisler, praised for "his haunting, behind-the-scenes look at funerals for Marines who return from Iraq in caskets," spent a year with the Marine officer. Both are members of TNG-CWA Local 37074.

The Pulitzers, given since 1917, come with a $10,000 cash award for each winner. The winning stories and pictures are available online at www.pulitzer.org.