NEW YORK — A five-part Los Angeles Times series on the futility of government efforts to quell the growing threat of wildfires won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday, and the New York Times claimed five of journalism's highest awards in a year that recognized the watchdog function of the press even as newspapers struggle to survive.
The Las Vegas Sun won the coveted public service medal for exposing lax safety standards that led to construction workers' deaths on the Strip.
Many of this year's winning entries focused on exposing corruption, waste and abuses of power -- a time-consuming, often expensive form of journalism increasingly endangered as news organizations slash staffs and close bureaus. At least one of Monday's winners was laid off this year.
As papers scale back, the danger of official abuse going unchecked increases, Pulitzer Prize administrator Sig Gissler said as he announced the winners at Columbia University. "Sometimes I think we take for granted the watchdog role of newspapers," Gissler said, referring to the array of winners cited for investigative work.
In their wildfire articles, reporters Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart reported that costly aerial drops of water and retardant often were ordered against firefighters' better judgment because they "make good television" and helped win political points for local officials. The series took 15 months from conception until publication last summer. It took seven months alone to get the results of a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Forest Service that provided details on the effort to quell the so-called Zaca fire. The 2007 blaze burned a quarter-million acres in the Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara.
The details ranged from the innocuous -- the lip balm used by the firefighters -- to the costs of aerial drops. The tab for one day of firefighting was more than $2.5 million. Despite such expenses, the series showed, fire protection policies were not working, and bigger, deadlier fires were raging.
"Calculating how the money was spent gave us a window into explaining how these escalating costs came about," Cart said. "Then you can look at all the component parts and ask, 'Are they necessary?' and, most importantly, 'Are they effective?' This is taxpayers' money."
"We are delighted to get the award at a time when the Los Angeles Times has gotten a lot of bad news," Boxall said. The Times' parent company, Tribune Co., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December and has cut hundreds of jobs in the last year.
Editor Russ Stanton noted that fewer papers across the country still do in-depth reporting but said that The Times "will always be one."
Judges called the reporting a "fresh and painstaking exploration." Frank Clifford, then The Times' environmental editor, launched the reporting in 2007 before leaving the paper, and the series was edited by Marc Duvoisin. Duvoisin and Clifford also helped guide The Times to a 2007 Pulitzer for its "Altered Oceans" series.
The most medals won Monday went to the New York Times. It was honored in the breaking news category for coverage of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's downfall amid revelations of his involvement with a prostitute. The newspaper also was awarded the investigative prize for "tenacious reporting" by David Barstow that revealed the Pentagon's use of retired generals -- working as radio and TV analysts -- to make its case for the war in Iraq. In international reporting, the New York Times won for coverage of U.S. military and political challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The newspaper also won for Holland Cotter's art reviews and for Damon Winter's "memorable array of pictures deftly capturing multiple facets of Barack Obama's presidential campaign."
The newspaper holds the record of seven Pulitzers in a single year, for coverage of the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Two papers shared the local reporting prize Monday. The Detroit Free Press won for uncovering a "pattern of lies" that led to jail time for Mayor Kwame Kirkpatrick. And the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz., was cited for reporting on how public safety was compromised by a sheriff's obsession with chasing illegal immigrants. One of the two reporters on the winning Arizona team, Paul Giblin, was laid off in January when the newspaper slashed 142 jobs. The reporter who worked with Giblin, Ryan Gabrielson, said it took them six months to complete the project. "This is about the only word to describe it -- unbelievable," Gabrielson said when he learned of the Pulitzer, the Tribune reported.
The East Valley Tribune is a free community newspaper. It cut back publishing to four days a week in January to reduce costs and will go to three days May 15, but operates seven days a week online.
