Times, New Yorker win for coverage of Weinstein scandal
NEW YORK» The New York Times and The New Yorker won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for breaking the Harvey Weinstein scandal with reporting that galvanized the #MeToo movement and set off a worldwide reckoning over sexual misconduct in the workplace.
The Times and The Washington Post took the award in the national reporting category for their coverage of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and contacts between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian officials.
The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, California, received the breaking news reporting award for coverage of the wildfires that swept through California wine country last fall, killing 44 people and destroying thousands of homes.
The Washington Post also won the investigative reporting prize for revealing decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct against Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama. The Republican former judge denied the accusations, but they figured heavily in Doug Jones’ victory as the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state in decades.
The Pulitzers, American journalism’s most prestigious awards, reflected a year of unrelenting news and unprecedented challenges for U.S. media, as Trump repeatedly branded reporting “fake news” and called journalists “the enemy of the people.”
The New York Times won three Pulitzers, and The Washington and Reuters received two apiece.
In announcing the journalism prizes, Pulitzer administrator Dana Canedy said the winners “uphold the highest purpose of a free and independent press, even in the most trying of times.”
“Their work is real news of the highest order, executed nobly, as journalism was always intended, without fear or favor,” she said.
A string of stories in The Times and The Washington Post shined a light on Russian interference in the presidential election and its possible connections to the Trump campaign and transition — ties now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Weinstein was ousted from the studio he co-founded and now faces criminal investigations in New York and Los Angeles.
The stories’ impact spread beyond Weinstein to allegations against other powerful men in entertainment, politics and other fields, toppling such figures as “Today” show host Matt Lauer, actor Kevin Spacey, newsman Charlie Rose and Sen. Al Franken.