I was routinely checking the East Valley Tribune Web site about dinnertime Monday and gasped when I saw that the Tribune had won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for local new reporting. I was so elated to learned that my former colleagues for the newspaper were rewarded for their tenacity and smart reporting last year on the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the impact of Sheriff Joe Arpaio zealous enforcement of immigration laws at the expense of other law enforcement work. Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin are first-rate journalists. Their five-part series, “Reasonable Doubt,” published last June, has won a number of awards, including the George Polk Award.
As one of the Tribune staff who lost his job in January– along with Paul — in wake of major downsizing and revamping to stay financially viable, I feel like the man whose wife divorced him and then she won $5 million in the lottery. My desk was about 10 feet from Ryan’s before I left the Tribune. We faced one another and I watch his fearless, diligent work and heard his frustrations hitting walls with those in law enforcement and others as he and Paul painstaking ferreted out the layers of the story. I watched the PBS film team work with them to hear them lay out their project and findings. Ryan and Paul are smart, intuitive journalists who could work for the nation’s top media. Maybe they will. Paul didn’t miss a beat as his job went away. He teamed with three other Tribune staffers laid off in founding the Arizona Guardian, an online political news and commentary site.
The Pulitzer Prize, of course, is the most coveted prize in the news industry. Commonly it is won by the big boys — the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune or Boston Globe, with some middle size papers here and there winning. I always have liked to say that I once replaced a Pulitizer Prize-winning reporter. In 1972 at the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier, Rich Whitt gave up his job as farm editor and assistant state editor. I was transferred from courthouse reporting to that job. Rich went to the Louisville Courier Journal as a reporter. Then in 1978, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting (same category of the Tribune’s win) for his thorough coverage of the fatal Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Ky. It took place May 28, 1977, and was the deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. There were 3,000 patrons and 182 employees inside that Memorial Day weekend night, and 165 persons died more than 200 injured. Rich Whitt would write exhaustively about the fire in which numerous fire and safety code violations were found. His findings led to the national award. A modest guy, he never made that much about the prize. We exchanged e-mails over the years, mostly sharing common information about our former newspaper.
Of course, it is so bittersweet for the Tribune and Paul and Ryan to win this grand prize. There is irony that the Tribune had to part ways with Paul and the editor who shepherded the project, Patti Epler, because of the economic downturn, the newspaper world’s partial collapse (due in large part to the Internet) and the need to cut payroll sharply to stay viable. What a thrill it must have been in the Tribune newsroom today. From afar, I send my hearty congratulations and feel that old joy to have been part of the Tribune, to have been there, at least, when the award-winning work took place. Despite its troubles, journalism remains a noble trade. I can always vicariously say I worked for a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, come what may.
I also see the irony of the Tribune Newspapers winning this award for investigations into the bowels of Joe Arpaio’s world of law enforcement. I recall working at the Tribune with Joe’s daughter when she was a reporter in our newsroom, a place where she met her husband, who was metro editor. Their engagement came as such a shock because their courtship had been kept such a deep secret. We attended their wedding in Scottsdale at the home of our Scottsdale Progress Tribune office manager. Joe gave away his daughter in the backyard on a day of vicious winds that made it impossible to hear the vows exchanged.
For all of us who have gotten to work with pros like Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin, we just say it was one of the unexpected good fortunes of chosing a career that has purpose. May this award only drive home the importance of a strong media and a commitment to watch-dog journalism. Without the courage and grit of reporters to question authority through sound and thorough investigation, democracy itself is at peril.
It’s not surprising that groupthinkers would honor fellow groupthinkers. EVT reporters were merely following the ULM (ultra-left media) template for reporting on the border invasion. And the template calls for the good little ULM soldiers to ignore the rule of law and demonize those tasked with the role of upholding it. The ULM realizes that an unchecked influx of illegals will eventually be converted into liberal votes.
So, congratulations for nothing, Ryan and Paul. You’re just good little soldiers following orders from Groupthink Command.