Press: Glittering Prizes

Eight of the twelve Pulitzer Prizes in journalism awarded last week went to dailies on TIME's ten best list—two each to the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal—and the winning entries generally reflected the papers' strengths.

The Los Angeles Times, which prides itself on massive projects, won in public service for a 27-part series, Latinos, based on more than 1,000 interviews and reported and edited by Mexican Americans on the staff. Editorial Cartoonist Paul Conrad, 59, an acid-penned liberal, won his third Pulitzer in 20 years for japes at U.S. military activity and the nuclear arms race.

The New York Times, which is a magnet for authoritative specialty writers, won for criticism by Architecture Critic Paul Goldberger, 33, and for national reporting by Science Writer John Noble Wilford, 50, on topics ranging from astronomy to Star Wars space weapons.

The Boston Globe, which has an aggressive social conscience, won for "special" (usually investigative) local reporting on race relations. One series criticized institutions, including the Globe, for poor minority hiring, and concluded, "Boston today is the hardest metropolitan area in America for a black person to hold a job or earn a promotion." News Photographer Stan Grossfeld, 32, won for portraits of suffering citizens in Lebanon.

The Wall Street Journal, which has broadened its definition of business-related coverage, won for international reporting by Foreign Editor Karen Elliott House, 36, who probed Middle East politics in interviews with Jordan's King Hussein, and for commentary by Vermont Royster, 70, who also won in 1953 for editorial writing. Royster's subjects included the Viet Nam War veterans' right to pride and the legacy of Martin Luther. Other awards: in general local reporting, to Long Island's Newsday for examining federal intervention in the medical treatment of severely handicapped children, most notably in the much litigated case of Baby Jane Doe; in editorial writing, to Editor Albert Scardino, 35, of the weekly Georgia Gazette (circ. 2,500), largely for attacks on official wrongdoing; in feature writing, to Seattle Times Reporter Peter Mark Rinearson, 29, for describing the development of the Boeing 757 passenger jet; in feature photography, to Anthony Suau, 27, of the Denver Post, primarily for pictures of mass starvation in Ethiopia.