Washington Post leads with six Pulitzer awards

The announcement was welcome news for the paper, which is buying out workers.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Washington Post won six Pulitzer Prizes on Monday — the most in its history — including awards for its coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre and a series exposing shoddy treatment of America’s war wounded at Walter Reed hospital.

The New York Times received two Pulitzers: one for investigative reporting, for stories on toxic ingredients in medicine and other products from China, and one for explanatory reporting, for examining the ethical issues surrounding DNA testing.

Previously, the Post won as many as four Pulitzers in a single year, in 2006. The record is seven, won by the Times in 2002, mostly for its coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Cheers erupted in the Post newsroom when the prizes were announced. Like many newspapers, the Post is struggling mightily with falling circulation and advertising revenue. It is going through its third round of employee buyouts since 2003.

“This is actually a boost to remind people that we can produce this kind of journalism at any time,” said Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. “We’re going to have a large enough newsroom to continue to produce this kind of quality journalism.”

In addition to the public service medal for the Walter Reed expos and the breaking-news award for Virginia Tech, the Post won prizes in:

UNational reporting, for its exploration of Vice President Dick Cheney’s backstage influence;

UInternational reporting, for a series on how private security contractors in Iraq operate outside many of the laws governing U.S. forces;

UFeature writing, for Gene Weingarten’s story on world-class violinist Joshua Bell, who, in an experiment, played beautiful music in a subway station just to see how commuters would react;

UCommentary, for Steven Pearlstein’s columns on the nation’s economic problems.

The Chicago Tribune also won in the investigative reporting category, for stories exposing faulty government regulation that resulted in recalls of car seats, toys and cribs.

The Pulitzer for local reporting went to David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for stories on how county employees’ pensions were padded.

Michael Ramirez of Investor’s Business Daily won in the editorial cartooning category.

Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe was honored in the criticism category for his observations on movies, photography and painting.

The prize for breaking news photography went to Adrees Latif of Reuters for his photograph of a Japanese videographer who was fatally wounded in a street protest in Myanmar.

Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire was honored in the feature photography category for a series of pictures chronicling a family coping with a parent’s terminal illness.

No prize was awarded this year in editorial writing.

The awards were announced at a time of great distress in the industry, with many newspapers laying off employees and cutting back on coverage as readers and advertisers forsake their daily paper for the Internet.

“Amid all the gloomy talk about journalism today, these are fine examples of high-quality journalism in all parts of the nation,” said Sig Gissler, administrator for the Pulitzers.