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The 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Local Reporting

Finalist: Peter Smith, Stephanie Strasburg and Shelly Bradbury of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For an unprecedented investigation of child sexual abuse and cover-ups in the insular Amish and Mennonite communities.

Nominated Work

Biography

Peter Smith is the religion editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He was part of the Post-Gazette team that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre. Smith has 35 years of journalistic experience and has covered the religion beat for 25 years in areas ranging from post-communist Europe to the Bible Belt. His coverage has included such topics as Muslims in post-9/11 America; Latinos in the Trump era; sexual abuse and coverup in the Catholic Church; and religion in the coalfields. He covered religion for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., from 2000 to 2013. He was previously a correspondent for Religion News Service, The Boston Globe and other news organizations. He is the current president of the Religion News Association, the nation’s premier professional association for journalists who cover religion in the secular and non-sectarian media. His multiple awards include top honors from the American Academy of Religion; the Religion News Association; the Religion Communicators Council; the Pennsylvania Society of News Editors; and regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. He received a BA in English from Oral Roberts University and an MA in religion from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Stephanie Strasburg is a staff photographer with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette devoted to community journalism, long-term storytelling, and investigative projects. Stephanie’s work is supported by a range of publications, exhibits, grants, and awards. She is part of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette team that received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre. Her recent projects examine the generational and geographic imprint of overdose; industry's impact on Pennsylvania's small cities, and child poverty in her region. In 2017, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting supported her travel to document the environmental and economic fallout from Alcoa’s departure from Suriname after a century as the country's largest employer. A believer in photography’s ability to build community, she teaches, speaks, and mentors in the field and is part of the founding class of the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Carnegie Art Associates, which works to make art experiences more accessible to her adopted city of Pittsburgh. She is a graduate of Goddard College’s Individualized Studies program.

Shelly Bradbury was the public safety reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for nearly three years before she moved to the Denver Post in November 2019, where she covers breaking news. She was a lead reporter on the team covering the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in 2018, work that later earned the newspaper’s staff the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. She previously worked as a crime reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee. She has reported on police misconduct, unsafe conditions at local jails and mass shootings. In Tennessee, she investigated how national trucking regulations contributed to a crash that killed nearly an entire family. In Pittsburgh, she examined how the city’s violence particularly traumatized young people, and she explained how the more than 100 police departments in the surrounding county perpetuate inequality. She graduated from Huntington University in Indiana with a bachelor’s in journalism.

Winners

Prize Winner in Local Reporting in 2020:

Staff of The Baltimore Sun

For illuminating, impactful reporting on a lucrative, undisclosed financial relationship between the city’s mayor and the public hospital system she helped to oversee. Local Reporting

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Local Reporting in 2020:

Staff of The Boston Globe

For its engaging approach to exposing socioeconomic inequities by surveying the city’s brightest public high school students a decade after graduation.

The Jury

Terry Baquet(Chair)

Former Director of Print, The Times-Picayune

Ted Appel

Managing Editor, The Press Democrat

Sandra A. Banisky

Abell Professor in Baltimore Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park

Anica Butler

Ideas Editor, The Boston Globe

Sewell Chan

Deputy Managing Editor for News, Los Angeles Times

Karen Magnuson

Executive in Residence, Rochester Institute of Technology

Andrea Valdez

Editor-in-Chief, The Texas Observer

Winners in Local Reporting

2019

Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.

For a damning portrayal of the state’s discriminatory conviction system, including a Jim Crow-era law, that enabled Louisiana courts to send defendants to jail without jury consensus on the accused’s guilt.
2018

Staff of The Cincinnati Enquirer

For a riveting and insightful narrative and video documenting seven days of greater Cincinnati's heroin epidemic, revealing how the deadly addiction has ravaged families and communities.
2017

The Salt Lake Tribune Staff

For a string of vivid reports revealing the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment given to sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University, one of Utah’s most powerful institutions.
2016

Michael LaForgia, Cara Fitzpatrick and Lisa Gartner

For exposing a local school board's culpability in turning some county schools into failure factories, with tragic consequences for the community. (Moved by the Board from the Public Service category, where it was also entered.)
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2020 Prize Winners

Commentary

Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times

For a sweeping, provocative and personal essay for the ground-breaking 1619 Project, which seeks to place the enslavement of Africans at the center of America’s story, prompting public conversation about the nation’s founding and evolution.
Criticism

Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times

For work demonstrating extraordinary community service by a critic, applying his expertise and enterprise to critique a proposed overhaul of the L.A. County Museum of Art and its effect on the institution’s mission.
See All 2020 Winners