Reporters Bob Woodward, right, and Carl Bernstein, whose reporting of the Watergate case won a Pulitzer prize, sit in the newsroom of the Washington Post, May 7 1973. Photograph: AP
Most hacks' hearts quicken a little when they hear mention of the Pulitzer prizes for journalism, which are being presented in New York on Monday.
This year's winners have already been announced and it is quite a joy to read and view the winning material on the excellent website of the awards named after the Hungarian-born titan of US journalism, Joseph Pulitzer, which have been going since 1917.
This year's features journalism Pulitzer has been won by Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune (registration required) for her "gripping, meticulously reconstructed" piece on a 10-second tornado that ripped through the town of Utica, Illinois, last year, killing eight people.
"If the sky could hold a grudge, it would look the way the sky looked over northern Illinois that day. Low, grey clouds stretched to the edges in a thin veneer of menace. Rain came and went, came and went, came and went."
Also recommended in the features category was Robin Gaby Fisher of the Star-Ledger (Newark), for her series on the lives of students in an alternative high school. The staff of the same paper won the breaking news Pulitzer for their "clear-headed" coverage of a New Jersey governor who resigned after confessing to a gay affair.
In the feature photography category, Deanne Fitzpatrick of the San Francisco Chronicle won the prize for her moving series on an injured Iraqi child. The Associated Press won the news photography category for coverage of Iraq and images including an insurgent standing on top of a burning Humvee, US marines praying over a dead comrade, and a dove sitting on the shoulder of a militiaman.
The LA Times won the Pulitzer for public service for a "courageous, exhaustively researched series exposing deadly medical problems and racial injustice at a major public hospital".
Steve Coll's Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10 2001, was recently published in Britain and has won the Pulitzer's non-fiction book prize. Last month the Guardian's Ian Black said he was impressed by the scope of its 200 or so interviews and called it a "remarkable testimony to the ability of a well-connected Washington journalist to penetrate the shadowy parts of the US government".
Of course the Pulitzers come after the UK's "Oscars for journalism", the Press Gazette awards,
have recently been attacked by the editors of several newspapers recently for their alleged diminishment of prestige.
The News of the World won newspaper of the year for a series of scoops about the private lives of celebrities. I'm guessing here, but if it was an American publication, I don't suppose it would have swept the board of the Pulitzers.
