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Terror attacks dominate Pulitzers,
NYT bags record seven

Dharam Shourie in New York

The New York Times has bagged an unprecedented seven Pulitzers this year for its stories on September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent war in Afghanistan.

Before the record-breaking feat of the Times, the maximum number of Pulitzers won by any organisation were three.

The Wall Street Journal staff won the highest honour in journalism in the breaking news category for its coverage of terrorists attacks on the World Trade Centre. They had to evacuate their office, which is across the street from what used to be the WTC, following the attack.

Big papers with vast resources dominated the awards as The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times won two prizes each.

Three Post writers won the award in investigative category for their series which exposed the District of Columbia's role in neglect and deaths of over 200 children placed in protective care. The paper also bagged the award for national reporting.

The New York Times got the prize in public service, explanatory reporting, beat reporting, international reporting, commentary, breaking news photography and feature news photography.

The Los Angles Times got two awards for feature writing and editorial writing.

Pulitzer for editorial cartooning went to the Christian Science Monitor and for criticism to Newsday published from Long Island in New York.

Prizes for 14 journalism and seven arts categories were announced by Columbia University which runs the competition.

But the celebrations were subdued with memory of September 11 attacks still fresh and kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl casting a shadow.

The public service award for The New York Times was for a separate section it brought after the terrorist attacks. Titled 'Nation Challenged', it covered the post-attack events in depth and provided all such stories in one place.

The prize for 'international reporting' went to Berry Bearak of the Times for coverage of events in Afghanistan and 'commentary' to Thomas Friedman for his column in the paper, several of which dealt with the worldwide effect of terrorism.

Addressing hundreds of reporters and editors gathered in The New York Times office, its publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr said: "We are witness to an extraordinary moment in the history of this newspaper, just an extraordinary moment. But it is built on the back of a real tragedy."

He then called for a moment of silence in memory of the nearly 3,000 people killed during the attacks and of Daniel Pearl, who was killed by Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

In the arts category, David McCullough won an award for a biographical work that burnished the image of the nation's often-criticised second president, John Adams.

Diane McWhorter received the award in the non-fiction category for her intricately woven portrait of the best and worst of Birmingham's citizens in Carry Me Home.

PTI

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