THIS IS AMERICA - Investigative Reporting Earns Several Hono

THIS IS AMERICA - Investigative Reporting Earns Several Honors Among This Year's Pulitzer Prizes
By Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: Monday, April 18, 2005

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Phoebe Zimmermann.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. The Pulitzer Prize is a top honor for American newspapers, books and the arts. Today we have a report on the winners announced earlier this month.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

First, the story of the Pulitzer Prize and the man who established it.

 
Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer was born in Hungary in eighteen forty-seven. He moved to the United States and settled in Saint Louis, Missouri. He became a newspaper reporter. Then he became a publisher.

In eighteen eighty-three, Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World. It became the best-selling newspaper in the country.

VOICE TWO:

Joseph Pulitzer died in nineteen eleven. He left two million dollars to Columbia University in New York City. Part of this money was to establish a graduate school of journalism² to train reporters.

Pulitzer also wanted to create a prize to honor the best in American writing. Columbia University has awarded the Pulitzer Prize since nineteen seventeen.

 
 
Each year, judges from around the country choose the best in journalism, books, drama, poetry and music. Almost all the prizes come with ten thousand dollars. This year's winners were honored for work from two thousand four. They will receive their awards on May twenty-third.

VOICE ONE:

Now for the winners ...

The Pulitzer judges chose the Los Angeles Times for the public service award. They praised the research that led to stories about serious problems at a public hospital in Los Angeles. The Martin Luther King Junior/Drew Medical Center is under investigation³ by public officials.

Charles Ornstein, Tracy Weber, Steve Hymon and Mitchell Landsberg were honored for their reporting for the five-part series. Rob Gauthier was the photographer.

VOICE TWO:

Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times was one of two winners of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Miz Murphy heads the Los Angeles Times office in Moscow.

The judges praised her reporting about Russian economic and social struggles. She reported on the attack by Chechen separatists at a school in Beslan last September.

Kim Murphy shared the award with Dele Olojede of Newsday, in Long Island, New York. Mister Olojede went to Rwanda to write a four-part series on the effects of the killings⁴ in nineteen ninety-four. Ethnic⁵ Hutus murdered as many eight hundred thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

VOICE ONE:

Wall Street Journal writers Amy Dockser Marcus and Joe Morgenstern also won Pulitzer prizes. Miz Marcus was honored for specialty⁶ reporting. She wrote about the struggles of cancer survivors⁷ and their families.

Mister Morgenstern won for film criticism. He has been a film critic for forty years.

VOICE TWO:

Writers and editors at the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey⁸, won the Pulitzer Prize in the area of breaking news reporting. The news was the resignation of the governor of New Jersey. James McGreevey, who has a wife and children, announced that he had been in a relationship with another man.

The Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting went to Nigel Jaquiss at the Willamette Week, a small newspaper in Portland, Oregon. He reported on a former state governor who, years earlier, had a relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl. At that time, the official was mayor of the city of Portland. After the newspaper investigation, he resigned from a position on the Oregon Board of Higher Education.

VOICE ONE:

Walt Bogdanitch of the New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. He investigated efforts by railroad companies to hide responsibility for deadly accidents at train crossings.

Gareth Cook of the Boston Globe won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing. The judges praised Mister Cook for his writing about stem cell research. They said he wrote clearly and with humanity about this complex subject.

And Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. She described in great detail what happened during the ten seconds when a tornado⁹ struck the town of Utica, Illinois. Eight people died in the powerful windstorm. Mizz Keller wrote about how the event affected¹⁰ the lives of survivors.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Connie Schultz of the Plain Dealer¹¹ in Cleveland, Ohio, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. The judges said her commentaries provided a voice for the less powerful in society.

Another prize for opinion writing went to Tom Philp of the Sacramento Bee in California. Mister Philp won the Pulitzer for editorial writing. The judges said his deeply researched editorials about a dam in Yosemite National Park produced action.

Mister Philp, and others, argue that the old dam should be removed from the Hetch Hetchy Valley. They say the flooded land should be reclaimed¹².

Nick Anderson of the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. The judges said his artwork produced extremely "thoughtful and powerful messages."

VOICE ONE:

 
A Pulitzer Prize Winning Photograph
The Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for news photography for images of a year of fighting inside Iraqi cities. Eleven photographers for the news agency, five of them Iraqi, took the winning pictures.

In the area of feature photography, the prize went to Deanne Fitzmaurice of the San Francisco Chronicle. She photographed an Iraqi boy who had been nearly killed by an explosion. The images followed the efforts of a hospital in Oakland, California, to help the boy recover.

VOICE TWO:

Marilynne Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Her book "Gilead" is the story of an old clergyman nearing the end of his life. He writes a letter for his young son to read when he grows up. The story is set in the Midwestern town of Gilead, Iowa, in nineteen fifty-six. Marilynne Robinson's novel deals with issues of life and death, and religion.

VOICE ONE:

David Hackett Fischer won the Pulitzer Prize for history for his book, "Washington's Crossing." Mister Fischer describes the difficulties that faced colonial troops during the Revolutionary War for American independence from Britain. General George Washington commanded the troops. Later he became the first president of the United States.

Steve Coll of the Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction for his book about terrorism and intelligence gathering¹⁴. The book is called "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin¹³ Laden¹⁵, from the Soviet¹⁶ Invasion to September tenth, two thousand one."

Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan won the Pulitzer for biography for "de Kooning: an American Master." Their book tells the life story of the artist Willem de Kooning. He was born in Holland. He became best known for his works in the abstract expressionism style of painting.

VOICE TWO:

Playwright¹⁷ John Patrick Shanley won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for "Doubt, a Parable¹⁸." This play is about a Roman Catholic nun¹⁹ and priest. Sister Aloysius believes that Father Flynn may be sexually abusing a boy at the school she heads. The play does not answer the question about his guilt²⁰ or innocence²¹. It leaves the audience to decide.

VOICE ONE:

Steven Stucky won the Pulitzer Prize for music for "Second Concerto²² for Orchestra." Last month, the Los Angeles Philharmonic gave the work its first performance.

(MUSIC "Second Concerto for Orchestra" )

VOICE TWO:

And there is one more Pulitzer Prize winner to tell you about. Ted¹ Kooser won the award for poetry for his collection "Delights & Shadows."

Mister Kooser is poet laureate of the United States. In fact, the librarian of Congress, James Billington, just appointed him to a second one-year term.

We asked Mister Kooser to read one of his works for our listeners. Here he with his poem, "A Happy Birthday."

(SOUND)

"This evening, I sat by an open window

and read till the light was gone and the book

was no more than a part of the darkness.

I could easily have switched on a lamp,

but I wanted to ride this day down into night,

to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page

with the pale gray ghost of my hand."

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver²³. I'm Phoebe Zimmermann.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. Our programs are online at voaspecialenglish-dot-com. And our e-mail address is [email protected]. Please join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

1 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

2 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

3 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

4 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。

5 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

6 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

7 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

8 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

9 tornado   

n.飓风，龙卷风

参考例句：

• A tornado whirled into the town last week.龙卷风上周袭击了这座城市。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

10 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

11 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

12 reclaimed   

adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救

参考例句：

• Many sufferers have been reclaimed from a dependence on alcohol. 许多嗜酒成癖的受害者已经被挽救过来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They reclaimed him from his evil ways. 他们把他从邪恶中挽救出来。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

13 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

14 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

15 laden   

adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的

参考例句：

• He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

16 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

17 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

18 parable   

n.寓言，比喻

参考例句：

• This is an ancient parable.这是一个古老的寓言。
• The minister preached a sermon on the parable of the lost sheep.牧师讲道时用了亡羊的比喻。

19 nun   

n.修女，尼姑

参考例句：

• I can't believe that the famous singer has become a nun.我无法相信那个著名的歌星已做了修女。
• She shaved her head and became a nun.她削发为尼。

20 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

21 innocence   

n.无罪；天真；无害

参考例句：

• There was a touching air of innocence about the boy.这个男孩有一种令人感动的天真神情。
• The accused man proved his innocence of the crime.被告人经证实无罪。

22 concerto   

n.协奏曲

参考例句：

• The piano concerto was well rendered.钢琴协奏曲演奏得很好。
• The concert ended with a Mozart violin concerto.音乐会在莫扎特的小提琴协奏曲中结束。

23 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。