Pulitzer Prize winners: South Carolina paper wins award for series on domestic violence

The New York Times wins three of journalism’s most prestigious awards

(Ken Hawkins/Flickr)

The Charleston Post and Courier won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in public service for its series on violence against women.

The series, called “Till Death Do Us Part”, was described by the Pulitzer committee as “a riveting series that probed why South Carolina is among the deadliest states in the union for women and put the issue of what to do about it on the state’s agenda.”

The reporters started working on the series in September 2013 when South Carolina was ranked no. 1 in the US in the rate of women killed by men by the Violence Police Centre. The newspaper’s coverage included a database of people killed in domestic violence, as well as comprehensive analysis of the multiple factors that contributed to the issue.

“It took a lot of folks to make this happen,” the newspaper’s executive editor, Mitch Pugh, said after hearing about the award, the Post and Courier reported. “Everybody in here should be very, very proud.”

See the other 2015 Pulitzer Prize winners (in journalism) below:

Breaking news reporting: The Seattle Times staff

Investigative reporting: Eric Lipton of the New York Times; and the Wall Street Journal staff

Explanatory reporting: Zachary R. Mider of Bloomberg News

Local reporting: Rob Kuznia, Rebecca Kimitch and Frank Suraci of the Daily Breeze in Torrance California

National reporting: Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post

International reporting: The New York Times staff

Feature writing: Diana Marcum of the Los Angeles Times

Commentary: Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle

Criticism: Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times

Editorial writing: Kathleen Kingsbury of the Boston Globe

Editorial cartooning: Adam Zyglis of the Buffalo News

Breaking news photography: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch photography staff

Feature photography: Daniel Berehulak, freelance photographer, the New York Times