ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997 TAG: 9704080071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Newsday wins for its coverage of the TWA Flight 800 crash, and The Wall Street Journal for coverage of AIDS-treatment drugs.
Stories about dangers in the sea and in the air, about hopes and fears generated by new AIDS treatments, about abuses in federal housing for American Indians and in a ruthless regime in Afghanistan - all captured 1997 Pulitzer Prizes in journalism Monday.
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans won two awards, including the public service prize for a series examining how overfishing and pollution are devastating the oceans. The Seattle Times also won two Pulitzers, journalism's most prestigious prizes.
An Associated Press photo of Russian President Boris Yeltsin dancing at a rock concert while campaigning for re-election was among the winners.
The Times-Picayune's public service award was for a series titled ``Oceans of Trouble.'' It examined problems facing the fishing industry in Louisiana and around the world, including dwindling supplies and ecological problems. One story detailed the horrors of the ``dead zone,'' an area in the Gulf of Mexico rendered nearly lifeless by vast amounts of untreated sewage and other pollution.
Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss called the public service award the ``essence of teamwork and what this newspaper is all about.'' The newspaper's second winner was editorial cartoonist Walt Handelsman.
The prize for spot news reporting went to Newsday for coverage of the explosion of TWA Flight 800 off New York's Long Island. The newspaper mobilized 32 reporters on the night of disaster, producing a 24-page special section.
The national reporting prize went to The Wall Street Journal for coverage of the emergence of powerful new drugs that have proved surprisingly effective against AIDS. One of the writers involved was David Sanford, who has been diagnosed with the disease.
``I hoped the story would be a history of the AIDS plague,'' Sanford said. ``I had modest ambitions for it, but it really struck a chord with people who have AIDS and whose loved ones have AIDS and, well, it won a Pulitzer.''
Eric Nalder, Deborah Nelson and Alex Tizon of the Seattle Times won the Pulitzer for investigative reporting for stories on corruption in a federally sponsored housing program for American Indians. The newspaper's Byron Acohido won the beat reporting prize for coverage of the aerospace industry, particularly his examination of rudder control problems in Boeing 737s.
John F. Burns of The New York Times won the international reporting award for coverage of the harsh form of Islamic rule imposed on Afghanistan by the fundamentalist Taliban.
The award for explanatory journalism was won by reporter Michael Vitez and photographers April Saul and Ron Cortes of The Philadelphia Inquirer for a series on choices confronting critically ill patients seeking to die with dignity. The feature writing prize went to Lisa Pollak of The (Baltimore) Sun for her portrait of a baseball umpire who endured the death of one son, while knowing that another son suffered from the same deadly disease.
The commentary prize was awarded to Eileen McNamara of The Boston Globe for columns on Massachusetts issues, and the criticism award went to Tim Page of The Washington Post for music.
Michael Gartner of The Daily Tribune of Ames, Iowa, won the editorial writing prize for coverage of local issues.
The spot news photography prize was awarded to Annie Wells of The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, Calif., for her photograph of a firefighter rescuing a teen-ager from floodwaters. The award for feature photography went to the AP's Alexander Zemlianichenko for his photograph of Yeltsin dancing.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB