NY Times Wins 4 Pulitzers; Fla. Paper Also Honored

The New York Times won four Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, including the award for investigative reporting for stories that detailed how Wal-Mart used bribery to expand in Mexico.

The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. was awarded the public service Pulitzer for its reporting on off-duty police officers’ reckless driving.

The prize in breaking news photography went to The Associated Press for its coverage of the civil war in Syria. AP Director of Photography Santiago Lyon called the winners — Rodrigo Abd, Manu Brabo, Narciso Contreras, Khalil Hamra and Muhammed Muheisen — “some of the bravest and most talented photographers in the world.”

A New York-based online nonprofit news organization that covers energy, InsideClimate News, won in the national reporting category for stories on flawed regulation of the nation’s oil pipelines.

The Pulitzers, journalism’s highest honor, are given out each year by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of journalists and others. Each award carries a $10,000 prize, except for the public service award, which is a gold medal.

The Times, which has won more Pulitzers than any other news organization, was also honored for international reporting for detailing the business dealings and extreme wealth of relatives of top officials in China’s communist party; for explanatory reporting, for a look at the business practices of Apple and other technology companies; and for feature writing, for an account of skiers killed in an avalanche in Washington state.

In their reporting on Wal-Mart, the Times’ David Barstow and Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab found that the world’s biggest retailer used bribery to get the construction and zoning approvals it needed to build several stores across the country.

The Pulitzer in breaking news reporting went to The Denver Post for its coverage of the shooting at a theater last summer in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 people dead.

Cheers erupted in the Post newsroom when word came of the award.

“We are part of this community. The tragedy touches us, but we have a job to do,” said Kevin Dale, the Post’s news director. He added: “It’s great to win the prize, but we’d rather win for a different story.”

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis captured two Pulitzers: It was honored in the local reporting category for its coverage of a spike in infant deaths in poorly regulated day care centers, and Steve Sack won for editorial cartooning.

The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens won the prize for commentary with his columns on American foreign policy and domestic politics.

In the criticism category, Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post was honored for his essays on art.

The prize for editorial writing went to Tim Nickens and Dan Ruth of the Tampa Bay Times of St. Petersburg, Fla., for a campaign that helped continue fluoridation of the drinking water for the county’s 700,000 people.

Tampa Bay Times Editor Neil Brown said that they composed “clear and forceful editorials.”

Javier Manzano, a freelance photographer, won the feature photography prize for a picture distributed by Agence France-Presse of two Syrian rebel soldiers.