Margot Williams | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | journalist, research librarian, dancer, actress |
Known for | member of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 |
This article needs to be updated.(December 2024) |
Margot Williams is a journalist and research librarian, who was part of teams at the Washington Post that won two Pulitzer Prizes. [1] [2] In 1998, she was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Gold Medal for public service for reporting on the high rate of police shootings in Washington, D.C. [3] In 2002, she was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for its coverage of the war on terror. [4]
Degree [5] | Institution | Field |
High School of Performing Arts | dancer and actress | |
B.A. | CCNY | Asian Studies |
M.S. | Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science | Library and Information Science |
Williams worked as a dancer and as an actress prior to finishing her academic career. [5]
Early in her career, Williams worked as the Library Director at the Poughkeepsie Journal .
In 1990, Williams joined the Washington Post. [5] While there, she was one of the contributors to the "Networkings" column. [6]
In 2004, Williams joined The New York Times. [7] While there, she spearheaded the paper's publication of a searchable database of 16,000 pages of documents produced by the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants. [1] [2] The Times introduced its "Guantanamo Dockets" on November 3, 2008. The dockets are based on the personal notes Williams had started to compile as she read all 16,000 pages concerning the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
In 2010, Williams left The New York Times and joined National Public Radio as a correspondent. [8]
In 1981, Williams wrote a book, Cuba from Columbus to Castro . [2] In 1999, she wrote a book, Great Scouts: CyberGuides for Subject Searching on the Web . [5]
year | award | institution |
---|---|---|
1998 | Gold Medal for public service | Pulitzer [3] |
1999 | Local or State Government Coverage | Associated Press |
2002 | National Reporting | Pulitzer |
2004 | Sports Editors Awards category of explanatory reporting for newspapers over 250,000 circulation | Associated Press |
2005 | International News Reporting Grand Prize | Annual Front Page Guild Service Awards |
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We found the project so interesting that we decided to ring Margot Williams, the Times' database research editor, who has spearheaded the effort. Margot has been involved in breaking Gitmo stories for years. In fact, she's such a junkie, she said she put a recording of KSM's confession [8] on her cellphone.
I was also on a team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting of the war on terrorism. In this effort, I was a member of a team that included Bob Woodward. I have to say that every prize that I have ever been involved with has been a team project, so it's not like the Pulitzer Prize is in my name. In order to get recognized, you have to have your name on the story somehow when it appears in print. In all my years in news librarianship, we'd have to fight to get credit on a story. That's the first step, and that's how it came about that researchers became part of Pulitzer Prize-winning teams.
Williams came to the Post in October 1990 from the Poughkeepsie Journal where she was the Library Director. She attended the famous High School of Performing Arts of "Fame" fame and worked as a dancer and actress before graduating from CCNY and Pratt Institute Graduate School. Williams holds a BA in Asian Studies and MS in Library and Information Science.
She was lead researcher on two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams at The Washington Post for reporting on terrorism in 2002 and for an investigation of the use of deadly force by the District of Columbia police in 1999. Margot is the co-author of "Great Scouts! CyberGuides for Subject Searching on the Web" (Cyberage Books, 1999) and contributed to the "Networkings" column in The Washington Post for five years.
Williams is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the Special Libraries Association (SLA) News Division. She is a frequent speaker and trainer for her own newsroom colleagues and the IRE, SLA, Poynter Institute, Knight Program at Ohio State University, National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, American Press Institute, Freedom Forum and numerous other conferences and seminars.
A few weeks ago, the Times informed NPR investigative unit head Susanne Reber and reporter Margot Williams -- who joined NPR last year after having previously maintained the Times' Guantanamo Bay database -- to give them the news: the paper had obtained the GITMO files.