
A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class - mrleiter
https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/mariel-padilla-pulizter-cincinnnati.php
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mcherm
Much of the credit goes to The Cincinnati Enquirer for having the ethics to
include interns on the byline. As they should, but not everyone would do so.

~~~
talltimtom
Honestly why should they? The Interns did exactly what they were told, the
went and jotted down details. Is that Pulitzer Prize worthy work? Does the
helper who whipes Einstein’s blackboard during the break deserve partial
credit for what he put on it?

I get that it’s a fun story but it honestly just seems redicules.

~~~
theoctopus
Had you actually read the article, you would have seen that:

> From there, she took it upon herself to create a database for Enquirer
> reporters, documenting the time, location, and nature of every opioid-
> related arrest that occured over those days.

The article also says that because of that database they were able to fill
gaps in the article and make it as compelling as it was.

~~~
philosopher1234
She seems worthy of being added to the byline, but I don't think its right for
you to be so dismissive of OP's point.

GP wrote a statement that sounds like "interns should be added to the byline
for pulitzer prizes." The way its written sounds like a general statement. In
reality, I'm not sure this is a reasonable expectation (as in, the word
"should" seems inappropriate.)

We should consider what makes someones work Pullitzer prize worthy. I'd
speculate (because I don't know much about journalism) that it really comes
down to doing outstanding work, more than is usually expected of any
individual, and for succeeding on metrics that are hard to succeed on.

This intern did something valuable, adding things to the database, and
probably coming up with the idea for the database herself, but does this meet
the criteria of being truly standout, incredible work?

The nature of this particular award that it was given to the entire staff who
contributed substantially to the coverage, seems like she is thus worthy, but
I don't think treating OP like they're being ridiculous is reasonable. This is
a worthwhile question. I think a lot of people on this site are familiar with
awards being given to people who don't seem to deserve it, so investigating
this topic, for a case that resembles that pattern, doesn't seem so offensive
or outrageous as you've kind of termed it.

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Tagore
It's an interesting award. Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer for denying the
holodomor, and he was awarded a Pulitzer for his work, a Pulitzer that the
Times has yet to address.

The reality that Duranty denied was comparable to the holocaust. Hundreds of
thousands, maybe millions, of people died and the Times apologized for it.

~~~
chris_wot
God, that's awful. They said that they won't withdraw it because he didn't
deliberately attempt to deceive anyone... that is their standard?

[https://www.nytco.com/new-york-times-statement-
about-1932-pu...](https://www.nytco.com/new-york-times-statement-
about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty/)

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pgrote
This is the series:

[https://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-
of-...](https://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-of-heroin-
epidemic-cincinnati/)

It is a tremendous work of crafting mixed media.

~~~
jacquesm
That's so painful to read. I wouldn't know any of those people because they
live half a world away, however I know many examples nearby.

Just one excerpt:

"Elliana, who turns eight months old today, is here for a checkup at
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She’s a patient at a special
clinic that treats babies for neonatal abstinence syndrome, which occurs when
babies are born to mothers addicted to heroin.

The infants can suffer tremors, sleeplessness, seizures and other withdrawal
symptoms.

Elliana gurgles and wobbles a bit when Uebel sits her on the examining table.
As she checks out the baby, Uebel quizzes Gaffney on Elliana’s progress.

“Is she holding things?”

“She takes stuff and then drops it out of her chair,” Gaffney says. “She looks
at it, then she looks at me and laughs.”

“Good,” Uebel says.

The clinic’s goal is to monitor the babies, but also to support the mothers.
Many, like Gaffney, used heroin and other opiates for years.

Gaffney, 28, quit cold turkey after learning she was pregnant. She’s living
now with the baby at First Step Home, a treatment center in Walnut Hills. They
plan to move into an apartment together soon.

After years of addiction, Gaffney’s goals are modest. She wants to raise her
child in a normal home. She wants a normal life.

Uebel finishes the examination. “She looks real, real good,” she says.

Gaffney is relieved. She scoops Elliana into her arms and takes her
appointment card for her next visit to the clinic in December.

“See you then,” she says.

(Ten days later, Gaffney is dead from a heroin overdose.)"

~~~
tonysdg
Follow-up story: [https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/12/16/seven-
days-...](https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/12/16/seven-days-heroin-
ellianas-story/905353001/)

~~~
jacquesm
Those parents are pretty amazing. To see their daughter go down that line and
then to step up to the place and do it all over again in their old age.

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RIMR
That story was absolutely amazing. The most shocking part of it to me was that
there is an organized effort to ban cops from carrying Naxalone, because some
people actually believe that heroin addicts deserve to die...

We live in a sick world...

~~~
jacquesm
> because some people actually believe that heroin addicts deserve to die...

You only have to look towards the Philippines to know the kind of results such
an attitude if left unchecked can engender.

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jacquesm
Journalism - real journalism, not blogging - matters. I've been thinking of
buying a newspaper subscription again because I feel that even though
newspapers typically lag 24 hours or so behind what you can read online
_someone_ needs to keep these people employed so they can do there very
necessary jobs. I don't think it is possible to have anything resembling a
democracy in the modern age without a free press.

~~~
SwellJoe
I started feeling that way a couple of years ago, and currently have three
online newspaper subscriptions, two national and one local. I mostly end up
getting to those stories from Twitter links (or from facebook for stories in
the local paper), rather than the front page of the paper, but real journalism
is absolutely vital to a functioning democracy (and ours is in a dangerous
place right now), so I want to contribute to that.

As an aside: WaPo is cheap-as-free if you have an Amazon Prime subscription
(several months free, and then the price goes up to something like the price
of a cup of coffee every month), and they've broken a number of really
important stories just in the past couple of years. I can't think of many
reasons for folks who already have Prime to not have a WaPo subscription. It's
good, neutral and well-sourced, journalism at a great price, so it's one of my
national paper subscriptions.

~~~
fma
NY Times and Washington Post were breaking a lot of important stories. I
decided to subscribe to NY Times - because Washington Post has the backing of
billionaire Jeff Bezos. I felt NY Times needed the $10 a month from me more.

I really wanted to get paper delivery, but the price was just too high. Also
it would probably be unrealistic that I actually read the paper - as I do most
of my reading when I have a few idle minutes.

A few years ago I subscribed to The Economist...you can find it at a good
price on slickdeals once in a while. Their articles were highly indepth and
provided a good international perspective...even in magazine format I couldn't
read even half of the content.

~~~
SwellJoe
NYTimes is my other national subscription...but I didn't mention them because
I'm a bit more ambivalent about them. I'm uncomfortable with how eager they've
been to support war; not just the Iraq war, when they published a number of
falsehoods that helped sell the war, but more recently as well (even while
publishing a bunch of "mea culpa" articles about their role in selling the
falsehoods that led to the Iraq war). The Times seemingly never met a foreign
war they didn't like.

They also have a history of compromising the integrity of their stories or
editorial pages to suit the government (e.g. WRT the Snowden leaks, and war
coverage) or corporations (e.g. on climate change). I still think they're a
top-tier organization in the field, certainly above 99% of everything else out
there, I just wish I could trust them more. That they're great 99 times out of
100 doesn't mean it's not really frustrating when their rare fuck ups are so
monumental and occasionally disastrous in their outcome (Iraq war, President
Trump; NYTimes didn't cause either problem, but they helped).

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franciscop
Not even comparable, but one of the most incredible moments in my life was
while I was studying at university. I joined a NASA competition with a friend
and we worked really hard to win, and so we did.

The next morning in class, as I went through the door, my classmates stood up
and started cheering and clapping at me. I had some sort of happiness brain
meltdown where I didn't even know how to react. From that moment, students I
didn't know from all majors stopped me at the campus cafeteria and hallways to
ask me about it.

I think being recognized by your peers in this way gives a different kind of
perspective/feeling that I had never felt before.

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eksemplar
It sounds like she earned it too, tracking and pursuing data and building it
into a usable databank.

Good job.

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ChuckMcM
That is both super amazing and uniquely hard to imagine experiencing. It has
to be surreal, in a journalism class, learning you've won Journalism's highest
honor. I thought it also interesting that the students were more concerned
that they would get in trouble for using a phone in class than with the import
of the event.

I don't think she will have much difficulty finding a job after she graduates
with that on her resume :-). I was trying to imagine a CS student applying for
a job where it mentions they have already won the Turing award. That would be
crazy.

~~~
qntty
I guess the reason that this is possible in a field like journalism is because
it's no theory-light in comparison to a theory-heavy discipline like CS. The
extreme of theory-lightness would be something like swimming where Michael
Phelps can break a world record at 15.

~~~
fjsolwmv
Not really. Pulitzer is for one piece of good work. Bill Gates proved a
pancake theorem in college. Many Thiel fellows are under 21 doing award
winning work in sciences. Jacob Lurie won the Westinghouse/Intel talent search
in high school with professional quality mathematician work.

Lots college kids win startup hackathon awards, akin to the Pulitzer. The
Pulitzer doesn't honor the best work or the greatest achievements, just a
sampling of great work.

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bspn
Congratulations to her. I remember reading the piece at the time (linked from
here actually!) and thinking it was a sad but powerful expose on the epidemic.
It's so easy to see the statistics and just move on, but the Enquirer team did
a fantastic job at providing human insight and showing the stark impact the
opioid crisis is having on entire communities.

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wst_
Is swearing, especially saying "fuck you", usual way to congratulate someone
in US?

~~~
dag11
Yep! I'm the same age as her, and this is how we all speak to each other
immediately upon earning/winning/receiving something incredible. It's from a
place of love, but only works with friends and close acquaintances.

~~~
wst_
Sorry to hear that. Must be a cultural gap, but I can't find any justification
to swear happily in random conversation - friend or not. Not to mention the
one that conveys congratulations. If being close with someone is the
explanation then, well, I really don't know what to say. There are so many
words that could be used instead...

~~~
cabaalis
I feel the same as you, and I think it's worth thinking about. At the risk of
sounding very "get off my lawn"-ish (I'm only early 30s!) I think it's related
to the fact that our lives are now giant public soap operas being played out
in social media for everyone to see. So the swearing at a person in
congratulations is telling that how an envious external audience member would
feel about their accomplishment, while the person you are swearing at takes
absolutely no offense and is very complimented.

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compiler-guy
She won a pulitzer not just while in _a_ class, but while she was in a
_journalism_ class.

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sneak
They should have gone upstairs and pulled her out of class beforehand and
demanded she sit in the announcement proceedings.

~~~
macintux
I'd wager that the intersection of the sets of people who knew they were going
to win the Pulitzer and the people who knew she was anywhere near the event
was entirely empty.

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ConcernedCoder
I only made it about 1/2 way through the story, it's so awful I had to just
close it and look away... I can't believe this is really happening right now
in America, what can possibly be done to help people, that for the most part,
don't want to be helped?

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gigatexal
That she created a database to document things and it was used by others is
amazing to the nerd in me. Congrats to her! I think she will do amazing things
in the future — she’s so humble.

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GreeniFi
Legend! Well done lass!

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intrasight
Fantastic!

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fluxic
So cool!!! What a slayer

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topkai22
That’s awesome! But I kept getting distracted thinking “why does safari cut
her face and legs get in portrait mode”

~~~
jlarocco
I don't know about Safari, but the website kinda sucks in general.

I wasn't able to scroll for the first few minutes the page was open. I
switched tabs to whine about it here, switched back, and suddenly I could
scroll.

