Courtesy of Pulitzer Prize.
Courtesy of Pulitzer Prize.

In April, four journalism alumni received multiple Pulitzer Prizes for categories in investigative, and international reporting.

Winning alumni who received the prestigious journalism award included Jim Simon (1984), Angel Gonzalez (2003), Alexa Vaughn (2011) and Gregory Winter (2000).

Working on a team at The Seattle Times, alumni Simon, Gonzalez, and Vaughn reported on a breaking news story about a mudslide in Washington state that left more than 40 people dead.

Alumna Alexa Vaughn credits her alma mater, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism for preparing her to report an in-depth story like the tragic mudslide.

“[At] Berkeley I learned how a team of reporters could collaborate on comprehensive coverage of a major media event,” Vaugh told the journalism school. “That experience came from Richmond Confidential‘s first major breaking/national story on a gruesome assault at Richmond High.”

Alumnus Gregory Winter, an editor for the New York Times’ international desk, earned his Pulitzer for his team’s reporting on the Ebola epidemic in Africa. The prize, which was for International Reporting, was one of two awards that the Times earned this year.

The Pulitzer Prize committee described Winter’s reporting as “courageous front-line reporting and vivid human stories on Ebola in Africa, engaging the public with the scope and details of the outbreak while holding authorities accountable.”

Winter also acknowledges the substantial amount of time commitment made by the staff to report on the Ebola story.

“It became abundantly clear, very early on, that Ebola was going to be one of the most important stories of the year,” he told The New York Times. “So our correspondents logged at least a year of total reporting and shooting time within the affected countries in West Africa.”