Charleston Gazette-Mail executive editor Robert Byers, left, leads the staff in a toast to reporter Eric Eyre, right, following the announcement of Eyre's 2017 Pulitzer Prize win for investigative reporting. Buttressed by plenty of hard data, and brought to life by shoe-leather reporting, Eyre’s series hit hard and prompted reform. “Regional and local newspapers have been decimated,” Northeastern University’s Dan Kennedy wrote last week. But nationwide, the number of statehouse reporters was down even more sharply than overall reporting staffs, a Pew study reported in 2014. “An industry that is dying is still alive,” wrote Roy Peter Clark on Poynter.org, in a piece before the Pulitzer awards.

Source: Washington Post April 16, 2017 20:15 UTC