Pulitzer Prize winners discuss their craft

Using stories as tools to shine spotlights on important issues is a vital aspect of journalism, according to Bill Marimow, editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, because it will spark conscientious action by public officials.

Marimow spoke Tuesday night at Schwab Auditorium on the Penn State campus as part of a panel of Pulitzer Prize winners. The panel, composed of four Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, was part of the centennial celebration of the Pulitzer that is taking place nationwide.

Marimow has won two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1978 for a series of stories on police violence in Philadelphia and another in 1985 for a series on police dogs attacking bystanders.

Jacqueline Larma, the Associated Press East Coast photo chief, also won a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 as part of a photo team covering the 100-day Rwandan genocide. Her brief assignment was in the summer of 1994.

“I came to the story as kind of a fluke, I was based in Jerusalem. The genocide had occurred … and about a million Hutus went west to Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) … at the end of July and contracted a lot of disease.”

“The Israeli military sent a humanitarian group … just by a fluke, I ended up in the pool,” Larma said. She was supposed to go for one day but ended up staying for eight.

“Right after I landed, we went straight to where the Israelis had set up a hospital. There was a Jeep that was going back to an orphanage … and I just went in the Jeep.” At this orphanage, Larma took some of her most iconic pictures.

Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman, reporters with the Philadelphia Daily News, won their Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for uncovering corruption in one of Philadelphia’s police squads. In 2014, they published a book titled “Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love.”

“Tainted Justice,” Laker and Ruderman’s series on the narcotic squads “started when a convicted drug dealer turned drug informant came to the paper and asked to speak to Wendy,” Laker said. “He was scared for his life, he wanted us to protect him.”

“Our story was sort of like peeling an onion and it was what we call a moving investigation, where it was just unfolding before us,” said Ruderman.

The series involved one of Philadelphia’s police narcotic squads that was found to be intimidating small-shop owners, cutting camera wires and stealing from them.

“While the bodega owners, for the most part, felt like they didn’t get justice (as a result of the story), they are grateful that because we uncovered it, the cops are no longer busting into corner stores and leaving with their pockets padded,” Laker said.

Only one of the officers lost his job as a consequence of the story, “but later got his job back through arbitration, because that’s the way it is in Philadelphia,” Laker said.

The Pulitzer Prize was established in the early 1900s by the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer in his will. Originally, seven prizes were given in journalism and in letters and drama. The prizes have since evolved and today 21 are given in journalism, books, drama and music composition. The first prizes were awarded in 1917.

This story was originally published September 27, 2016 at 11:11 PM with the headline "Pulitzer Prize winners discuss their craft."