St. Petersburg Times earns two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism

by Charles William Young

     ST. PETERSBURG TIMES EARNS TWO PULITZER PRIZES FOR JOURNALISM

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. C. W. BILL YOUNG

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 23, 2009

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, The St. Petersburg Times earned
a rare honor Monday by collecting multiple Pulitzer Prizes for
journalism excellence.
  Washington Bureau Chief Bill Adair and his team won the only Pulitzer
Prize awarded this year by Columbia University for content created for
the web. They earned the honor in the National Reporting category for
PolitiFact, a website at www.politifact.com conceived by Bill Adair to
test the validity of political statements.
  Times Staff Writer Lane DeGregory won the second Pulitzer Prize for
Feature Writing for her story "The Girl in the Window", which is
about a Plant City child who was locked in her room by her adoptive
parents.
  This is a great honor for Paul Tash, the Editor, Chairman, and Chief
Executive Officer of The St. Petersburg Times and his team of writers,
editors, and support staff in this the newspaper's 125th year.
  Madam Speaker, following my remarks, I will include for the benefit
of my colleagues a story from the Times by Stephen Nohlgren with more
background on these awards and the six Pulitzer Prizes earned
previously by St. Petersburg Times reporters and editors.
  The creation of PolitiFact will be of special interest to our
colleagues in the House. The PolitiFact team, led by Bill Adair,
included editors Scott Montgomery and Amy Hollyfield, reporter and
researcher Angie Drobnic Holan, reporters Robert Farley and Alexander
Lane, news technologist Matthew Waite and designer Martin Frobisher.
  Together they searched through political ads, speeches and debates
and determined the accuracy of political statements by presidential
candidates and candidates for other offices. The information is
accessible and searchable on the internet and is also published in the
Times. PolitiFact became such a valuable source of information during
last fall's campaign season that it was quoted regularly by national
news organizations.
  Madam Speaker, Please join me in congratulating Lane DeGregory, Bill
Adair, and his team for a job well done in earning journalism's highest
honor this week. They have set the standard for human interest and
political reporting as judged by the peers in their field of work.

             [From the St. Petersburg Times, Apr. 21, 2009]

                         Times Wins 2 Pulitzers

    (By Stephen Nohlgren), The St. Petersburg Times, April 21, 2009

[excerpt of article]