AP — The Pulitzer committee announced today that New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor has won a prize in the new Hyper-Local News category for her coverage of the Justice Sam Alito flag controversy.
The committee has had a Local Reporting prize since 2007 but added the new category, in its words, “to honor journalists who cover neighborhood association disputes, fights over whether leaves should be bagged or loose at the curb, and how late the lights at local ballparks should be allowed to stay on — in other words, matters that might ordinarily be dismissed but can be of great consequence to the future of American democracy.”
In its citation, the committee said, “We are delighted to award this inaugural prize to Jodi Kantor, who in her devotion to covering what others might have considered a meaningless contention between people who happened to live near each other in suburban Northern Virginia has shown that hyper-local coverage deserves attention even from august national news organizations.”
Referring to Barbara Baden, the mother of the woman with whom Justice Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, clashed, the committee added, “We hope that this prize will encourage Kantor or other journalists to dig further into whether a Christmas card from the Alitos to Barbara Baden bearing the handwritten inscription, ‘May you have PEACE,’ was sincere or sarcastic, among many other major aspects of this story that have not yet been fully explored.”
Natalie Spencer, who was a finalist based on her work on a controversy over what constitutes a “big dog” or “small dog” at the dog park in the Alexandria, Va., neighborhood of Del Ray, congratulated Kantor.
“I thought my reporting was hyper-local,” Spencer said, “since only about ten people cared about the rules at the dog park after the unfortunate incident with the Shih Tzu. But Jodi proved you can go even more hyper-local. It never even occurred to me to cover arguments between neighbors, but her example is going to inspire me to up my game.”
Charles Knoblauch, the editor of the Northern Virginia Journal, was less generous. His reporter was nominated for a series on which way trash bins should point when left out on collection day in the Arlington County neighborhood of Tara. “We did real journalism,” Knoblauch fumed. “If it’s considered news now when neighbors call one another names, I’m not sure I want to stay in this business. I mean my neighbor still has my rake after borrowing it last November. Should I call the [expletive deleted] New York Times?”
Knoblach was the exception, though, as Kantor’s prize was met with widespread acclaim. A source near Emily Baden, the woman at the center of the Alito controversy, hailed the awarding of the Pulitzer.
“Emily feels so seen right now,” commented this person, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about a friend. “As you might imagine, she was worried she might not be able to get favorable media coverage after calling another woman in her neighborhood a c—-. And you know, the whole calling the police on the Alitos thing seemed like it might not play well. But Jodi really stepped up. We will always be grateful for her allyship.”
A reporter who drove by the Baden home saw a spray-painted piece of cardboard that had been placed in the front yard reading, “In this house, we make Pulitzers.”