Medill alumni win Pulitzer recognition

Pieces on Vietnam War, worker safety regulations win reporters recognition

By Katie Walton

The Daily Northwestern

Mitch Weiss and his co-writers did not receive much positive feedback when they first published their series detailing the atrocities committed by an Army platoon known as the Tiger Force during the Vietnam War.

“At first the e-mails were real negative,” Weiss said. “(People asked): ‘Why are you running this story? Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a war with Iraq?'”

But the Medill alumnus and state editor of the Blade of Toledo, Ohio, received the best feedback one can get in the world of journalism Monday. He was one of two former Northwestern students to be recognized by the Pulitzer Board, along with a former NU faculty member, when it named this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners.

Medill alumnus David Barstow, Medill ’86, also received recognition from the Pulitzer Board. He and his co-reporter earned the New York Times the Public Service Award for their work examining safety-regulation breaches in the work place.

Former NU history Prof. Steven Hahnwas awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History for his book “A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration.”

Weiss, who earned a master’s degree from Medill in 1982, and his co-writers, Michael Sallah and Joe Mahr, were awarded the Pulitzer for their investigative reporting of the Tiger Force incidents.

“They were some of the most horrific war crimes you can imagine,” Weiss said. “Some involved killing unarmed farmers, cutting a baby’s head off for a necklace it was wearing … throwing grenades into underground bunkers and creating mass graves.”

Public information about the crimes was lacking until Weiss and his co-workers started looking into the events. The team published a four-part series about the incidents after about nine months of travel and research.

Weiss said he hopes the Pulitzer recognition will draw more attention to the events outlined in the series. He and Sallah are working on a book about the Tiger Force.

Barstow, the other Pulitzer winner, and co-reporter Lowell Bergman were nominated as finalists in the investigative reporting category “for their relentless examination of death and injury among American workers and exposure of employers who break basic safety rules,” according to the Pulitzer Web site.

The work was then moved to the “Public Service” category, where it earned The New York Times the Public Service Award.

Barstow could not be reached for comment.

Medill Dean Loren Ghiglione said he attributes former students’ successes in part to the skills they acquired while at NU.

“We emphasize reporting and writing and editing,” he said. “And quality journalism starts there. Also, I think we attract some extraordinarily bright people — it’s a winning combination: intelligence and ability.”