Monday, April 05, 2004

Barstow/Bergman Win Pulitzer for Workplace Safety Series

David Barstow and Lowell Bergman won the Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times series about worker safety at a company where lax enforcement allegedly contributed to thousands of injuries and some deaths.
The New York Times won for an unusual collaboration across media with the PBS program "Frontline'' and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The piece examined workplace hazards at the foundries of cast-iron pipe manufacturer McWane, Inc.

"This represents an extraordinary pioneering example of a hybrid form of journalism,'' Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said. "It's another demonstration that whatever may be said about the Times being stodgily traditional, the fact is, we can do whatever we put our minds to."
Last December, Barstow also completed a series of articles on the federal government's failure to pursue criminal convictions when employers willfully kill workers. Both series can be found here.