The Pulitzer panel praised the Wall Street Journal journalists -- including Charles Forelle, James Bandler and Mark Maremont -- for a "creative and comprehensive probe." Academic research had speculated that corporate executives might be manipulating the dates on stock options to increase their value -- a lead that special projects editor Maremont brought to his colleagues.
Forelle, a Yale math major, suggested a probability analysis to assess the likelihood that options would have fallen by chance on extremely advantageous dates. Dozens of stories followed, leading to internal or outside investigations of at least 264 companies.
Among the many executives caught up in the probe was UnitedHealth Group Inc. Chief Executive William McGuire. McGuire, the head of one of the nation's largest health insurers, lost his job. Along with a colleague, he was forced to give back more than $390 million in options compensation.
"It's gratifying as newspaper reporters to have such a wide impact and clean up such a dark corner of corporate America," Maremont said. "And I think capitalism is better for it. People shouldn't be cheating."
Other Pulitzer winners holding public institutions and officials accountable were:
* Brett Blackledge of the Birmingham (Ala.) News, the investigative reporting winner for his "exposure of cronyism and corruption in the state's two-year college system," which led to the dismissal of its chancellor.
* New York Daily News writers Arthur Browne, Beverly Weintraub and Heidi Evans, who won the editorial writing prize "for their compassionate and compelling editorials on behalf of ground zero workers whose health problems were neglected by the city and the nation."
* Miami Herald reporter Debbie Cenziper for reports on "waste, favoritism and lack of oversight at the Miami housing agency that resulted in dismissals, investigations and prosecutions." The prize was the first in the new local reporting category.
* Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage, the winner in the national reporting category, "for his revelations that President Bush often used 'signing statements' to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws."
The award submissions demonstrated the efforts of traditional media organizations to transition into a new era in which many viewers are not reading their print editions. Two years after the Pulitzers began accepting online content in all categories, as many as one-fifth of the entries for work in 2006 included audio, video, graphic or print elements from newspaper websites.
