Herald, Times win Pulitzer prizes

NEW YORK (AP) - The Grand Forks Herald, which published through floods that devastated the North Dakota city and its own plant, won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for public service yesterday. The New York Times won three of journalism's most prestigious awards and the Los Angeles Times won two.

It was the first Pulitzer for the Herald, whose building was destroyed a year ago this week by a fire that swept through Grand Forks in the midst of the flooding. Most of the news room's 57 employees were flood victims.

The paper continued publishing with help from other Knight Ridder newspapers, including the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, which provided computer equipment and printed the Herald during the crisis.

AP PHOTO Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel sits on the unfinished set her off-broadway production, "How I Learned to Drive," March 30, 1998, at the Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska.

"It would have been worth it, even if we hadn't gotten the prize," said Jeff Beach, news editor of the 37,000-circulation Herald. "People in the community are starting to talk about remembering the Herald again, from that special time during the flood when it was being snapped up at all the refugee centers and how very important it was to people. I think that meant more than the prize."

Also receiving a Pulitzer was The Riverdale Press, a New York City weekly with a circulation of 11,800. Editor and co-publisher Bernard Stein was honored for editorials on politics and city issues.

Tipped in advance that he had won, but not sure whether to believe it, Stein sent a reporter to Columbia University for the announcement.

"Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, 'I'm going to win a Pulitzer Prize today,"' Stein said. "I wasn't willing to believe it and now we're all drinking champagne."

The New York Times won for beat reporting, international reporting and criticism, and the Los Angeles Times was honored for breaking news reporting and feature photography.

The beat reporting prize went to Linda Greenhouse for coverage of the Supreme Court, while the international reporting prize went to the Times' staff for a series on the effects of drug corruption in Mexico. Michiko Kakutani's writing on books and contemporary literature was honored with the criticism prize.

Greenhouse said she had been tipped in advance to her victory. "There's not too many secrets in Washington," she joked. "I hope the award might inspire editors and news directors to take the beat seriously," she said.

Craig Pyes was one of the four reporters who worked on the Times' Mexico series for a year, during which they received death threats and were sued by politicians they had linked to drug trafficking.

"I hope it sends a message to reporters in Latin America who have been brutalized by governments while they were covering stories," Pyes said.

04-15-98