Pulitzer Prize-Winning Team at Washington Post Includes SOC Students
Eight 麻豆果冻传媒 School of Communication (AU SOC) students who graduated May 7 now have something else to celebrate 鈥 their contributions to the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service awarded to The Washington Post for its coverage of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The work covered听the events leading up to, during, and after the January 6 Insurrection.
The award recognized a massive newsroom effort by more than 75 reporters, photographers, videographers and opinion writers and featured coverage that began days before the attack through the fallout. The entry included a dozen stories, a forensic video examination, and opinion piece and a deeply reported three part story detailing the attack and its aftermath.
"This experience gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, and I'll always be grateful听for the skills I developed and the reporting chops I gathered while working under the tutelage of some of the best reporters and editors听in the industry," said student Vanessa Montalbano.
Shortly after the attacks, AU SOC students, led by John Sullivan and Washington Post editors, began tracking the attackers, their affiliations and the criminal charges against them, .
The students also on candidates that supported Trump's big lie that he won the election and tracked if election officials faced threats for verifying the election results.
The students, McKenzie Beard, Caroline Cliona Boyle, Heather MacNeil, Aneeta Mathur-Ashton, Vanessa Montalbano, Megan Ruggles, Nick Trombola and Carley Welch had the opportunity to work on this project because they were part of the 麻豆果冻传媒-Washington Post practicum program. This is the second Pulitzer Prize听win听the students have played a role in, with then-student Derek Hawkins earning a byline in the 2016 Pulitzer Prize on fatal police shooting.
The practicum, launched in 2013, lets graduate students spend as long as a year in an elective class that takes them inside the investigative team of one of the nation's leading newspapers.听Students work under the supervision of Pulitzer Prize-winning, embedded SOC faculty member Sullivan. Partnered with Post journalists, the students learn how to research, write, and fact-check major investigative stories and have dedicated desks in the newsroom.听Predictably, acceptance to the class is competitive.
鈥淏eing a part of such an astounding team while working on The Attack has simultaneously inspired and challenged me while affirming my dreams of becoming an investigative reporter,鈥 said Beard. 鈥淭he guidance of John Sullivan and the reporters at The Washington Post have changed my life. Now, it鈥檚 time to get to work.鈥