Pulitzer Prizes awarded to three Ohio State graduates

COLUMBUS – Three graduates of The Ohio State University won the coveted Pulitzer Prize this week for excellence in editorial cartooning, national reporting and feature writing.

All three say their Ohio State education and experiences were instrumental in helping them capture the prize.

Nick Anderson, editorial cartoonist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, was cited “for his unusual graphic style that produced extraordinarily thoughtful and powerful messages.” Anderson, who earned his B.A. in Political Science in 1990, was cartoonist for Ohio State’s student newspaper, The Lantern, during his career as a student. In 1989, he won the Charles M. Schulz Award for best college cartoonist in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Walt Bogdanich, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, won his second career Pulitzer “for his heavily documented stories about the corporate cover-up of responsibility for fatal accidents at railway crossings.” Bogdanich earned his master’s degree in 1976 as part the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism.

Julia Keller, a Chicago Tribune reporter, was recognized “for her gripping, meticulously reconstructed account of a deadly 10-second tornado that ripped through Utica, Ill.” Keller earned her Ph.D. in English from Ohio State in 1995. She reported for The Columbus Dispatch from 1981 to 1998.

In addition, Kevin Boyle, associate professor of history, was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in the American history book category for “Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age.”Arc of Justice earned Boyle the 2004 National Book Award for nonfiction.

Anderson, who began cartooning while in high school in Toledo, says his work at The Lantern and as a political science student at Ohio State had a strong impact on his career. “The political science department at Ohio State is first rate.”Anderson said. “The professors are great and they really had an effect on my intellectual development.”He said he develops his cartoons by “doing a lot of reading, thinking and brainstorming.”

Bogdanich, who also won a Pulitzer Prize at the Wall Street Journal in 1988, credits his Ohio State experience for giving him direction as a journalist. “Several lectures that I attended inspired me to learn how to do investigative projects,”Bogdanich said. “I recognized that it was what I wanted to continue to do.”

His advice for Ohio State students who wish to follow Pulitzer Prize winners: “Learn a lot about history, and if you find you have a low threshold of indignation, then become an investigative reporter.”

Keller describes herself as a non-traditional student who spent 10 years as a working journalist in Columbus before deciding to enroll at Ohio State to earn a Ph.D. in English. She says her professors were instrumental in making her into a Pulitzer Prize winner. “Beyond the academics and my dissertation, we talked about what makes good writing. What sorts of techniques does one bring to bear on literary biography?” She says “there was a wonderful cross-pollination because I was working at The Dispatch at the time.”