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American journalist
Brett J. Blackledge (born 1963) is former editor of
The Daily Advertiser in
Lafayette, Louisiana . He previously worked as Regional Investigations Editor for USA Today Network in Florida and as Investigations Editor at the
Naples Daily News in Florida. Before joining the Naples paper in October 2014, Blackledge was Public Service and Investigations Editor at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. [
citation needed ] He worked as a reporter for 26 years before joining the Delaware newspaper, including working as a reporter for
The Associated Press in
Washington D.C. [
citation needed ] While working for
The Birmingham News , he won the 2007
Pulitzer Prize for
investigative reporting for a series on alleged
nepotism and
cronyism in
Alabama's two-year college system . [
citation needed ]
Blackledge was born in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana and is a 1986 alumnus of
Louisiana State University . [
citation needed ] He began his career that year with the Associated Press, and later worked for The Journal Newspapers in suburban Washington, D.C.,
Education Daily and
The Mobile Register . He went to work for The Birmingham News in 1998.
[1]
While with the News , Blackledge contributed to Alabama AP Managing Editors Association Award-winning stories on the 2003 conviction of
Bobby Frank Cherry for the 1963
16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
[2]
Blackledge's multi-part investigative series on the two-year colleges delved deeply into financial records kept by the system, exposing a number of elected lawmakers on the system's payroll without clear duties. [
citation needed ] The system's chancellor was fired, federal and state investigations opened, and new safeguards for public accountability promised in the wake of the exposé. [
citation needed ] The series earned Blackledge a 2006 Alabama Associated Press Association Award.
[3] The newspaper entered the multi-part special report for the 2007
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service , and it was named a finalist in that category before the committee awarded it the prize for investigative reporting instead. [
citation needed ]
References
External links
Previously the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, No Edition Time from 1953–1963 and the Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting from 1964–1984
1953–1975 1976–2000
Chicago Tribune (1976)
Acel Moore &
Wendell Rawls Jr. (1977)
Anthony R. Dolan (1978)
Gilbert M. Gaul &
Elliot G. Jaspin (1979)
Stephen Kurkjian ,
Alexander B. Hawes Jr. ,
Nils Bruzelius ,
Joan Vennochi &
Robert M. Porterfield (1980)
Clark Hallas &
Robert B. Lowe (1981)
Paul Henderson (1982)
Loretta Tofani (1983)
Kenneth Cooper ,
Joan Fitz Gerald ,
Jonathan Kaufman ,
Norman Lockman ,
Gary McMillan ,
Kirk Scharfenberg &
David Wessel (1984)
Lucy Morgan ,
Jack Reed &
William K. Marimow (1985)
Jeffrey A. Marx &
Michael M. York (1986)
Daniel R. Biddle ,
H.G. Bissinger ,
Fredric N. Tulsky &
John Woestendiek (1987)
Dean Baquet ,
William C. Gaines &
Ann Marie Lipinski (19)
Bill Dedman (1989)
Lou Kilzer (1990)
Joseph T. Hallinan &
Susan M. Headden (1991)
Lorraine Adams &
Dan Malone (1992)
Jeff Brazil &
Steve Berry (1993)
Providence Journal-Bulletin (1994)
Stephanie Saul &
Brian Donovan (1995)
The Orange County Register (1996)
Eric Nalder ,
Deborah Nelson &
Alex Tizon (1997)
Gary Cohn &
Will Englund (1998)
Miami Herald (1999)
Sang-Hun Choe ,
Charles J. Hanley &
Martha Mendoza (2000)
2001–2025
David Willman (2001)
Sari Horwitz ,
Scott Higham &
Sarah Cohen (2002)
Clifford J. Levy (2003)
Michael D. Sallah ,
Joe Mahr &
Mitch Weiss (2004)
Nigel Jaquiss (2005)
Susan Schmidt ,
James V. Grimaldi &
R. Jeffrey Smith (2006)
Brett Blackledge (2007)
Walt Bogdanich ,
Jake Hooker &
Chicago Tribune (2008)
David Barstow (2009)
Barbara Laker ,
Wendy Ruderman &
Sheri Fink (2010)
Paige St. John (2011)
Matt Apuzzo ,
Adam Goldman ,
Eileen Sullivan ,
Chris Hawley ,
Michael J. Berens &
Ken Armstrong (2012)
David Barstow &
Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab (2013)
Chris Hamby (2014)
Eric Lipton &
The Wall Street Journal (2015)
Leonora LaPeter Anton ,
Anthony Cormier ,
Michael Braga &
Esther Htusan (2016)
Eric Eyre (2017)
The Washington Post (2018)
Matt Hamilton ,
Harriet Ryan &
Paul Pringle (2019)
Brian Rosenthal (2020)
Matt Rocheleau ,
Vernal Coleman ,
Laura Crimaldi ,
Evan Allen &
Brendan McCarthy (2021)
Corey G. Johnson ,
Rebecca Woolington &
Eli Murray (2022)
Staff of
The Wall Street Journal (2023)