By Steve Sampsell, Penn State
Alumna Sara Ganim became the second Penn Stater in their 20s to win the Pulitzer Prize when it was announced April 16 that her coverage of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State had earned the award for local reporting.
Ganim, 24, is a crime reporter for the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., and the third-youngest journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize in the award’s 95-year history.
Her reporting led the cycle of news regarding the Sandusky situation on a daily basis when charges against the former football coach first became public on Nov. 5, 2011. She had initially reported a grand jury investigation of Sandusky in March 2011.
“Obviously, to say we are proud of Sara would be understatement. She should serve as an inspiration to aspiring young journalists everywhere,” said Dean Doug Anderson of the College of Communications. “It seems like only yesterday that, during her senior year in high school in Florida, she visited campus with her parents. She had been accepted to Penn State, but she wanted to see first hand what our journalism program had to offer. She was checking things out carefully even then.”
Ganim, who earned her journalism degree in 2008, began her journalism career while she was still in high school in Florida. As an undergraduate at Penn State, she worked for The Daily Collegian and she also worked for the Centre Daily Times (CDT) in State College, Pa., while she was a student. She graduated in three years and worked for the CDT for two years before joining the Patriot-News in January 2011.
“What really struck me about this story and about Sara’s work is that this was not a case where we uncovered some big issue or wanted to look at some big issue or did a massive investigation,” Patriot-News editor David Newhouse said April 16 when Ganim and other reporters were named recipients of the award. “This was a case of a reporter doing her job.”
It was the newspaper’s first Pulitzer Prize in its 157-year history. The paper has a circulation of 67,000 weekdays and 117,000 Sundays.
Ganim’s winning entry included nine stories. According to the Patriot-News, other writers involved in the entry were: Iey DeJesus, Donald Gilliland and Jeff Frantz, who earned his Penn State journalism degree in 2004.
The Pulitzer Prizes, awarded since 1917, honor excellence in the arts and journalism. There are 21 categories, and in 20 of the categories (including Ganim’s category) the winners receive a $10,000 cash award and a certificate. Only the public service category, which is awarded to a newspaper and not an individual, does not come with a cash prize. The winner in that category gets a gold medal.
In addition to a Pulitzer Prize, Ganim’s work with the story has garnered many awards, among them a George Polk Award for Journalism, a Distinguished Writing Award for Local Accountability Reporting from the American Society of News Editors and a 2011 Scripps Howard Award for Community Journalism. In March, Ganim was named to a Newsweek magazine list of “150 Fearless Women In the World.”
Along with her ongoing reporting duties, she has been busy describing her work while continuing to follow the ongoing story in the months and weeks since it first became public.
Among the many discussions she has had about her work have been a panel discussion conducted by the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism in late November (video) and an appearance on the University Park campus last week during a regional meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors (video).
“We are so happy for Sara. She is a great example for aspiring young journalists,” said Ford Risley, head of the Department of Journalism. “Sara’s passion for journalism always impressed me. She is incredibly tenacious.”
Norman “Mike” Miller, 1956 Penn State graduate in journalism, of the Wall Street Journal also won a Pulitzer while in his 20s. He received the award for local general or spot news reporting in 1964 with his coverage of a million-dollar vegetable oil swindle in New Jersey.
Two other Penn State College of Communications alumni have earned a Pulitzer Prize during their careers. In 1993, Rod Nordland, 1972 journalism, was part of a team at The Philadelphia Inquirer that won for local, general or spot news coverage of the Three Mile Island accident. In 2000, Janet Day, 1982 journalism, was part of a team at The Denver Post that won for breaking news for coverage of the shootings at Columbine High School.
The only Pulitzer winners younger than Ganim have been: Stephanie Welsh, who was 22 when she won the 1996 Pulitzer for her photography of a female circumcision rite in Kenya that was published by Newhouse News Services, and Jackie Crosby, who was 23 when she won the 1985 Pulitzer for specialized reporting for an in-depth series that focused on academics and athletics at the University of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology.