The New York Times Company
06/11/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/11/2021 19:40
2021 Pulitzer Prize Remarks from Monica Davey
I have to say, there has been so much inspiring work by so many National reporters and editors on this - from Seattle to Miami and everywhere in between. It's impossible to say enough about the remarkable work of the entire National team. So many correspondents have done reporting and traveled - at times at great personal risk - and of course they were experiencing their own upheaval and in some cases, significant personal loss.
One story that sticks with me is Julie Bosman's piece about a medical examiner in Wisconsin. Julie had talked and texted with this medical examiner for months. It was just one of a million calls she was making to get a handle on the virus and how it was playing out around the Midwest. But when Julie contacted Patty Schachtner in November, the virus was surging and this medical examiner who had worked so hard to prepare her county to avoid the worst of the pandemic was watching Covid overtake her community. She even lost her father, and Julie brought this painful, intimate portrait to our readers.
These were the sorts of stories that only a national staff that was truly on the ground, following the pandemic wherever it went, day after day, could see. And we in fact did follow the story - every single case - right from the beginning.
Mitch, why don't you remind people how the tracking project started.