Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 10, 1991 TAG: 9104100439
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
The Des Moines Register on Tuesday was awarded the prize for public service for chronicling the story of rape victim Nancy Ziegenmeyer, who allowed her name to be used in an effort to counter the shame often associated with rape.
The Los Angeles Times, the St. Petersburg [Fla.] Times and Gannett News Service won for stories that focused on child abuse and neglect.
Winners of Pulitzers in the arts included Neil Simon, who won his first in drama for "Lost in Yonkers" after 30 years of playwriting, and John Updike, who collected his second in fiction for "Rabbit at Rest," the last of his four-novel "Rabbit" series. His first Pulitzer was in 1982 for "Rabbit is Rich."
"He managed to win this prize for me and I feel like a heel having treated him so badly," Updike said, referring to Rabbit Angstrom's death in the final book.
Wall Street Journal reporter Susan Faludi examined the leveraged buyout in 1986 of Safeway Stores Inc. and won the Pulitzer for explanatory journalism. She detailed the human cost of the supermarket chain takeover in layoffs, suicide and wage cuts. The deal involved $5.7 billion in buyout debt.
"I was really interested in looking at it from the bottom up," Faludi said. "I think any story that sort of forces business executives to look at the moral consequences of their decisions is important."
The prize-winning five-part Des Moines Register series was set in motion when Ziegenmeyer read a Register op-ed piece saying newspapers' policy of not identifying rape victims somehow suggested they were at fault.
The series, reported by Jane Schorer, graphically described the rape and how it devastated Ziegenmeyer. The articles prompted widespread reconsideration of news organizations' practice of concealing the identity of rape victims.
"It's a triumph of openness and it's a triumph of fearless truth-telling," Register Editor Geneva Overholser said.
The Los Angeles Times' David Shaw won the Pulitzer for criticism for his examination of the way the media reported the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case.
Sheryl James of the St. Petersburg Times won for feature writing for her stories about a mother who left her newborn in a box near a trash bin.
The winners of the national reporting award, Marjie Lundstrom and Rochelle Sharpe of Gannett News Service, revealed that hundreds of child abuse-related deaths are undetected each year because of errors by medical examiners.
The feature photography prize went to William Snyder of The Dallas Morning News for his pictures of sick and orphaned children in Romania.
The Associated Press' Greg Marinovich won the Pulitzer for spot news photography for pictures from South Africa showing supporters of the African National Congress killing a man they believed was a Zulu spy.
One attacker told Marinovich to stop taking pictures, the photographer recalled. "I said I'd stop shooting when they stopped killing him," Marinovich said. The gang slowed its attack but ultimately killed the man.
"It was a very dangerous set of pictures to take," AP Executive Photo Editor Vin Alabiso said. "He put himself at great risk to bring them to the world."
In awarding a prize for international reporting to Caryle Murphy of The Washington Post, the Pulitzer Prize Board noted that some of her dispatches were filed while she hid from Iraqi authorities in occupied Kuwait.
The New York Times' Serge Schmemann also won a Pulitzer for international reporting, for his coverage of the unification of Germany.
Tuesday's awards marked the 75th year the prizes were given by Columbia University under an endowment by Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the old New York World. The awards carry a prize of $3,000 except in public service - a gold medal is given in that category.
In other categories:
The spot news reporting Pulitzer went to the staff of The Miami Herald for stories about a local cult leader.
Joseph Hallinan and Susan Headden of the Indianapolis Star won in the investigative reporting category for a series on medical malpractice.
The beat reporting Pulitzer went to Natalie Angier of The New York Times for her articles on scientific topics.
Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post won for commentary on events leading up to the Gulf War and the political problems of Mikhail Gorbachev.
The Pulitzer for editorial writing went to Ron Casey, Harold Jackson and Joey Kennedy of The Birmingham [Ala.] News for their editorial campaign analyzing inequities in Alabama's tax system and proposing reforms.
by CNB