A hefty, long investigation into the environmental and human impacts of a messy, acrid pipeline rupture that forced evacuations of homes and polluted Michigan waterways won the upstart Inside Climate News service a Pulitzer yesterday. Congratulations quickly poured in, including from many others who run non-profit news agencies to fill the gaps left by the fade of big media, including networks and metropolitan newspapers.
Kudos from this corner as well.
The winning reporters are Elizabeth McGowan, Lisa Song, and David Hasemyer. The story package that won it is "The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You've Never Heard Of. " The link goes to an Amazon page selling (for Kindle users) an e-book repackaging of the series. Non-profit does not mean non-business-savvy. On the other hand, it's only $2.99. Here at the ICN site are (free) Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
ICN's own story celebrating its prize is here. Several comments to that are from others in the non-profit news biz, including one from the folks at Climate Central. At another such outlet, Venture News, executive editor Dylan Tweney wrote the news up as Online news comes into its own as small nonprofit website wins a Pulitzer. As Tweney notes, ICN joins such other but larger non-profits as Huffington Post, Politico, and Pro Publica in the Pulitzer-winning pantheon (and whoa lookit that – accidental alliteration!).
The prize is also timely right now. Late last month an Exxon pipeline cut loose under an Arkansas subdivision, sending gooey tar sands oil – also diluted bitumen similar to that in Michigan – into back yards, across streets, down gutters and into creeks. News on that – here's a recent LATimes dispatch – referred frequently to the Kalamazoo River mess. Perhaps the Pulitzer Committee just got lucky to get a breaking-news event to underscore its wisdom in anointing ICN. Maybe that news gave ICN's bid a boost during the voting. But it's a swift one-two in any case. Here, by the way, is a recent reminder on Michigan NPR by Steve Carmody that the Kalamazoo River is still badly oiled.
Grist for the Mill: Pulitzer Prize citation, etc for National Reporting. Pulitzer Prize full list of winners and finalists.
One notices that the usual slot for science writing and related beats, Explanatory Reporting, this year went to business writers at the NY Times. However, among finalists this year were two that fit the niche: Dan Egan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the explanatory journalism bin for reporting on invasive Asian carp, and in the investigative reporting category Patricia Callahan, Sam Roe and Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune for the hazards of fire retardants in furniture and crib mattresses.
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