Photographer: Meg VogelCincinnati Enquirer staff celebrate the Pulitzer Prize announcement on April 16, 2018.
The Cincinnati Enquirer recently won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting thanks to the work of several Ohio University alumni, including lead writer Dan Horn.
The award-winning project, which included text and video, was titled “Seven Days of Heroin.” The story focused on an ordinary week for people affected by the Cincinnati, Ohio, area’s heroin epidemic.
In addition to the impact heroin has on its abusers, the story also shows how drug abuse affects the relatives and friends of the addicts as well as the paramedics and police officers who have the duty to help them.
More than 60 reporters, videographers and photographers from several Gannett-owned newspapers worked on the story, including eight OHIO alumni. In addition to Horn, the other seven Bobcats included Jessie Balmert, Maria Devito, Michael Nyerges, Anne Saker, Trista Thurston, Meg Vogel and Sarah Volpenhein.
Horn, a 1988 OHIO graduate, said the story was written to remind people – to show them – what’s happening every hour of every day in their own community. He shared a few of his thoughts on the story and the Pulitzer Prize.
“I hope that maybe people come away from this story with some empathy for those suffering with this addiction and for those trying to help them,” Horn said. “We forget sometimes how terrible this problem is, how it destroys people – fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and entire families. I don’t have a simple solution. I don’t think anyone does. But empathy seems to me a good place to start.”
Thurston is a 2016 Scripps College of Communication graduate who was working for the Gannett Company-owned Lancaster Eagle-Gazette when she was asked to contribute to the story. She said she is still “absolutely thrilled and honored” to be part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team.
“The reporting I did for the ‘Seven Days of Heroin’ project is unlike anything I had done before," Thurston said. "It was an observational style of reporting. We served as a fly on the wall in each of our communities to give an intimate glimpse at this devastating epidemic. Instead of asking questions as I am accustomed to, I sat and listened, watched and took in everything around me."
Thurston said she was driving home when the photographer she worked with on the project texted her and told her they had won a Pulitzer Prize. She said she just burst into uncontrollable tears.
"I almost couldn't believe him," Thurston said. "I started to borderline hyperventilate, I was in so much shock. I know each and every one of us on that team poured everything into that series. Of course, we don't do this for awards, but I'm truly grateful that people recognize the time, energy and hard work that went into publishing ‘Seven Days of Heroin.’”
The Pulitzer win was The Cincinnati Enquirer’s second. The first one was awarded in 1991 when Jim Borgman won for editorial cartooning.
Robert Stewart, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, said he was very proud of the Bobcats who worked hard on this important project. He said about 40 E.W. Scripps School of Journalism alumni have won a Pulitzer Prize, including seven of the eight Bobcats who won this year.
“We’re very proud of Dan Horn and our other alumni who were part of this incredible project,” Stewart said. “The topic couldn’t be more important.”
Stewart noted that Scripps School alumna Sandhya Kambamphati was also a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer award for local reporting as a reporter for ProPublica Illinois. The publication investigated the Cook County, Illinois, property tax assessment system.
Scripps School alumna Alex Stuckey won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 as a member of a Salt Lake Tribune team that published a story about sexual assault at Brigham Young University and Utah State University.