Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

The Herald Courier of Bristol, Va., won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for its reporting on the mishandling of natural gas royalties owed to thousands of landowners in Virginia.

The Washington Post received four Pulitzers -- for international reporting, feature writing, commentary and criticism. The New York Times won two -- for national reporting and explanatory reporting.

ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative-journalism service, won one of two Pulitzers awarded for investigative reporting for a story on the life-and-death decisions made by doctors at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. The story was a collaboration with The New York Times Magazine.

The other prize for investigative reporting went to the Philadelphia Daily News for exposing a rogue police narcotics squad.

The Seattle Times staff was honored in the breaking news category for its coverage of the shooting deaths of four police officers in a coffee shop. The Pulitzer for local reporting went to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a series of stories on fraud and abuse in a child-care program for poor working parents.

The Dallas Morning News won for editorial writing.

Mark Fiore, a self-syndicated artist whose animated cartoons appear on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site, SFGate.com, was honored for editorial cartooning.

The Des Moines Register won for breaking-news photography for capturing a rescuer trying to save a woman trapped beneath a dam, and the Denver Post was honored for feature photography for a portrait of a teenager who joined the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq.

The Herald Courier was honored for the work of Daniel Gilbert, whose reporting on natural gas royalties led lawmakers to take corrective action.

The Washington Post's award for international reporting went to Anthony Shadid for what the Pulitzer board called "his rich, beautifully written series" on Iraq as the U.S. military gets ready to withdraw. The newspaper's Gene Weingarten won in feature writing for a piece on parents who accidentally kill their children by leaving them in cars.

The Post also won in commentary for Kathleen Parker's witty columns on political and moral issues, and in criticism, for Sarah Kaufman's writing on dance.

The New York Times won for national reporting for a series of stories in print and online on distracted driving, and for explanatory reporting for exposing defects in federal food-safety regulations.

The Pulitzers are the most prestigious awards in journalism and are given out annually by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of distinguished journalists and others. Each award carries a $10,000 prize except for the public service award, which is a gold medal.

Columbia University; Pulitzer Committee.