Sun-Sentinel Wins Well-Deserved Pulitzer For Parkland Coverage
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The Sun-Sentinel on Monday won the Public Service Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Marjory Stoneman High School shootings and the slaughter’s aftermath.
Giving the award to the Sun-Sentinel highlights the importance of local journalism to Broward County and other simliar communities. Despite being financially beleaguered with a hallowed out staff, the Sun-Sentinel worked tirelessly to uncover how local officials failed to protect the students and how the incident triggered a nationwide debate over gun control.
The public service award that the paper won is considered perhaps the most prestigious one in journalism.
Take That Broward School Board!
The Pulitzer is a rebuke to Superintendent Robert Runcie and some members of the Broward School Board like Laurie Rich Levinson. Runcie and his supporters on the Board like Levinson for months slandered the paper’s coverage of the school system’s shortcomings in the Parkland shooting.
They publicly called the reporting false and slanted. The Pulitzer judges obviously disagreed.
Runcie and the School Board should be ashamed of themselves, but Sun-Sentinel staffers aren’t waiting for an apology. They continue to work digging into the school system’s failures.
Every Sun-Sentinel Staffer Deserves Congrats
Since almost every member of the staff took part in covering Parkland, it would be wrong for Browardbeat.com to single anyone out. Believe me that many family dinners were postponed and vacations rescheduled so that readers could get the news fast and accurately.
The prize is the ultimate recognition by the journalism community that the Sun-Sentinel staff did an admirable and meaningful job.
The Sun-Sentinel has its problems like all print newspapers. It also has a group of dedicated writers and editors who made a difference, not only in Broward but nationwide.
April 15th, 2019 at 5:09 pm
Runcie called it False News. He has been proven about as accurate as Trump.
April 15th, 2019 at 5:26 pm
well said buddy. well said.
FROM BUDDY:
Tom Lubart was the paper’s political writer in the 1970s. He went on to have a career in television at ABC.
April 15th, 2019 at 5:37 pm
FINALLY SOMETHING GLORIOUSLY LITETATE TO CELEBRATE IN BROWARD COUNTY!!! Sad HOW.MANY GOOD, SOLID JOURNALISTS HAVE BEEN LOST, but at least the survivors have been GIVEN A WELL DRESERVED HOHONOUR.
April 15th, 2019 at 10:11 pm
Brittany Wallman did a great job with this coverage. Great job Brittany….
FROM BUDDY:
I worked with Brittany back in the day. She never does anything but a great job.
April 16th, 2019 at 12:41 pm
Congratulations to the Sun Sentinel. So many School Board Members and Mr. Runcie lambasted them at every turn. Guess what? They were right and should make some of their critics humbled. I also would like to see more people understand, five members of the School Board would follow Runcie no matter what he does. I truly hope this will wake up some of Runcie’s supporters.
April 16th, 2019 at 1:51 pm
Congratulations to the SS and to the journalists. I could not believe my eyes when reading the stories that won the Pulitzer Prize.
Day after endless day, the SS publishes less than stellar,usually totally biased articles. The coverage of the damage done by the school shooter and the peeling back of layers that hide the School Board’s grossly negligent actions to keep schools safe were deserving of the honor.
Keep up the good work!
April 16th, 2019 at 5:57 pm
Is there an elephant in the room?
The editorial board had NO IDEA prior to their post school board election digging that the incumbent school board members were extremely “problematic’? It’s as if Brittany, Bob, Megan and others had never reported on Broward school cases of reckless negligence prior to MSD. They did. Their stories were excellent, detailed and thorough before this tragedy. At exactly what point did the incompetence and self interest of the SBBC become an outrage that needed to be exposed? The school board meetings have been dominated by the same corrupt leaders for years. Grateful for the exposure and do congratulate the reporters. However, their endorsement and PROMOTION of two of the incumbents did irreparable harm to the process of corrective action and caused much pain to the families and community who continue to struggle following this unspeakable tragedy.
April 20th, 2019 at 7:59 am
#7. Spot on. We had the same problem in 1995 when Buddy and S-S reporters were exposing the inept and corrupt board as they tried to evade public scrutiny and pass a billion dollar sales tax under the radar. This time people died and it could have been avoided. Nothing’s changed
April 22nd, 2019 at 2:57 pm
Sorry but the Sun Sentinel isn’t a fraction of what it used to be, not even close and very few are prepared to pay anything to get yesterday’s news today anymore. Still way too much editorial license with news articles to be reliable. Quite clearly Pulitzer’s are not what they used to be either.
May 1st, 2019 at 5:21 pm
#9 Is not fair to the Sun Sentinel or newspapers especially print journalism. Tje internet has destroyed Department Stores n Classified Ads in print. Without these two basic funding sources publishers are dependent on subscriptions n one shot sales that are limited.