Brett J. Blackledge (born 1963) is former editor of The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, Louisiana. He previously worked as Regional Investigations Editor for USA Today Network in Florida and as Investigations Editor at the Naples Daily News in Florida. Before joining the Naples paper in October 2014, Blackledge was Public Service and Investigations Editor at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. [ citation needed ] He worked as a reporter for 26 years before joining the Delaware newspaper, including working as a reporter for The Associated Press in Washington D.C. [ citation needed ] While working for The Birmingham News , he won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for a series on alleged nepotism and cronyism in Alabama's two-year college system. [ citation needed ]
Blackledge was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and is a 1986 alumnus of Louisiana State University. [ citation needed ] He began his career that year with the Associated Press, and later worked for The Journal Newspapers in suburban Washington, D.C., Education Daily and The Mobile Register . He went to work for The Birmingham News in 1998. [1]
While with the News, Blackledge contributed to Alabama AP Managing Editors Association Award-winning stories on the 2003 conviction of Bobby Frank Cherry for the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. [2]
Blackledge's multi-part investigative series on the two-year colleges delved deeply into financial records kept by the system, exposing a number of elected lawmakers on the system's payroll without clear duties. [ citation needed ] The system's chancellor was fired, federal and state investigations opened, and new safeguards for public accountability promised in the wake of the exposé. [ citation needed ] The series earned Blackledge a 2006 Alabama Associated Press Association Award. [3] The newspaper entered the multi-part special report for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and it was named a finalist in that category before the committee awarded it the prize for investigative reporting instead. [ citation needed ]
The Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting has been awarded since 1953, under one name or another, for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series in a U.S. news publication. It is administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.
The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalistic resources, which may include editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics, video and other online material, and may be presented in print or online or both.
The Tampa Bay Times, previously named the St. Petersburg Times until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single year for the first time in its history, one of which was for its PolitiFact project. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit journalism school directly adjacent to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus.
The Buffalo News is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located at 1 News Plaza in downtown Buffalo, New York. It was for decades the only paper fully owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. On January 29, 2020, the paper reported that it was being sold to Lee Enterprises.
The Michigan Daily is the weekly student newspaper of the University of Michigan. Its first edition was published on September 29, 1890. The newspaper is financially and editorially independent of the University's administration and other student groups, but shares a university building with other student publications on 420 Maynard Street, north of the Michigan Union and Huetwell Student Activities Center. In 2007, renovations to the historic building at 420 Maynard were completed, funded entirely by private donations from alumni. To dedicate the renovated building, a reunion of the staffs of The Michigan Daily, the Michiganensian yearbook, and the GargoyleHumor Magazine was held on October 26–28, 2007.
The Montgomery Advertiser is a daily newspaper and news website located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1829.
The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana, since January 25, 1837. The current publication is the result of the 2019 acquisition of The Times-Picayune by the New Orleans edition of The Advocate, which began publication in 2013 as a response to The Times-Picayune switching from a daily publication schedule to a Wednesday/Friday/Sunday schedule in October 2012.
The Birmingham News is the principal newspaper for Birmingham, Alabama, United States. The paper is owned by Advance Publications and was a daily newspaper from its founding through September 30, 2012. After that day, the News and its two sister Alabama newspapers, the Press-Register in Mobile and The Huntsville Times, moved to a thrice-weekly print-edition publication schedule. In November 2022, Advance management announced that all three newspapers would cease publication of their print editions in 2023.
The Patriot-News is the largest newspaper serving the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area. In 2005, the newspaper was ranked in the top 100 in daily and Sunday circulation in the United States. It has been owned by Advance Publications since 1947.
The Advocate is Louisiana's largest daily newspaper. Based in Baton Rouge, it serves the southern portion of the state. Separate editions for New Orleans, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate, and for Acadiana, The Acadiana Advocate, are published. It also publishes gambit, about New Orleans food, culture, events, and news, and weekly entertainment magazines: Red in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, and Beaucoup in New Orleans.
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) is a nonprofit news organization based in Emeryville, California. It was founded in 1977 as the nation’s first nonprofit investigative journalism organization, and has since grown into a multi-platform newsroom, with investigations published on the Reveal website, public radio show and podcast, video pieces and documentaries and social media platforms, reaching over a million people weekly. The public radio show and podcast, “Reveal,” co-produced with PRX, is CIR’s flagship distribution platform, airing on 588 stations nationwide. The newsroom focuses on reporting that reveals inequities, abuse, and corruption, and holds those responsible accountable.
The Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting is awarded to an example of "local reporting that illuminates significant issues or concerns." This Pulitzer Prize was first awarded in 1948. Like most Pulitzers the winner receives a $15,000 award.
The Virgin Islands Daily News is a daily newspaper in the United States Virgin Islands headquartered on the island of Saint Thomas. In 1995 the newspaper became one of the smallest ever to win journalism's most prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The newspaper is published every day except Sunday. The paper maintains its main office on Saint Thomas and a smaller bureau on Saint Croix.
The Tuscaloosa News is a daily newspaper serving Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States, and the surrounding area in west central Alabama.
Tony Bartelme, an American journalist and author, is the senior projects reporter for The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina. He has been a finalist for four Pulitzer Prizes.
Debbie Cenziper is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist and nonfiction author. As of November 2022 she writes for ProPublica and is the director of the Medill Investigative Lab at Northwestern University. She spent more than a decade as an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, and has written two nonfiction books.
Martin Oliver "Mo" Waldron was an American newspaper reporter. His 1963 series of articles in the St. Petersburg Times exposed the state's "reckless, unchecked spending" on the construction of the Sunshine State Parkway, and was recognized with the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. At his death he was the bureau chief for The New York Times in Trenton, New Jersey, the state capital.
Harold Jackson is an American journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize. In 2010, he was editor of the editorial page of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He was formerly an editorial writer at The Baltimore Sun and The Birmingham News (Alabama).
Joey Kennedy is an American journalist who lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
Eric Eyre is an American journalist and investigative reporter, best known for winning the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for exposing the opioid crisis in West Virginia. He was a statehouse reporter for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. He resigned his position in April 2020. He is also the author of the book, Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic.