Pulitzer prize awarded to FOI and open government advocate

Mark Mahoney, The Post-Star's editorial page editor, has won the editorial writing category of the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes, journalism's top honors.

The national contest annually recognizes the best reporting and writing published in a calendar year, and the honorees generally come from the biggest and most well-known newspapers in the country.

The Post-Star has never before been recognized as a Pulitzer Prize winner or finalist and, with 34,000 daily circulation, it was the smallest paper among this year’s winners.

Only one other paper with less than 100,000 circulation — the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz., a co-winner in the local news category — was among the winners.

All the others were large metropolitan papers, such as The New York Times, which won five prizes.

Mahoney was first picked as one of three finalists — the other two were editorial writers from the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. In the final round of judging, Mahoney was picked as the winner.

Each entrant in the editorials category had to send in 10 examples of his work.

Mahoney’s editorials focused on issues to which he has returned many times over the years — governmental openness and accountability, freedom of information and First Amendment rights.

Mahoney’s specialty, recognized by the judges, is to take on complicated, contentious issues with clarity and wit. He has a gift for making dry topics, like the Freedom of Information Law, readable through entertaining examples and comparisons.

Read the entire article here.