The Miami Herald remains far and away the most Pulitzer-decorated paper in Florida, and even in its weakened state, today the rag added another medal to its award shelves, bringing the total to 20. Patrick Farrell's powerful photos of a storm ravaged Haiti took home the award for Breaking News Photography, the Herald's first honor in this category.
The big news though in Florida press circles today will be that the St. Pete Times took home two awards. The National News award for their Politifact website, and another in Feature Writing category for a piece by writer Lane DeGregory.
The Politifact nod is perhaps one of the most interesting of this year:
giving an award to a website usually reserved for print material. It's
exactly the kind of thing papers should be looking to do to build a
bridge to a possibly print-less future. Not that very many people were
citing Politifact, but hey, the Pulitzer had to prove that their hip
with this internet thing. What were they going to do? Give it to Politico? "And in the category of Breaking News: Politico for 'Obama's Favorite Brand of Gum is Trident."
This brings the Times' total Pulitzer count to 8. In case you're wondering, by our quick check the only other papers in Florida to win Pulitzers ever were the long departed Miami News (5 total), and an award to the The News Herald out of Panama City in the '60s.
The Times and the Herald did recently consolidate their Tallahassee bureaus in a cost-cutting, story sharing move.
