Lookout Santa Cruz wins Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting

We have incredible news to share. 

Today, the Pulitzer Prize jury gave its coveted “Breaking News Reporting” award to Lookout for our wall-to-wall coverage of Santa Cruz County’s catastrophic January 2023 floods.

“For its detailed and nimble community-focused coverage, over a holiday weekend, of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that displaced thousands of California residents and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses,” said Marjorie Miller, vice president and global enterprise editor at The Associated Press said Monday in announcing the award.

We are awed to win the category won in the past three years by the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. 

The other finalists were the Honolulu Civil Beat for its coverage of Maui wildfires and the Los Angeles Times for coverage of a fatal Lunar New Year shooting.

Everyone in our company contributed to that coverage and our many (digital) ways to distribute it to readers throughout the county, even those without internet service. It was a true team effort that required us to often work 12-hour days and through weekends. But our newsroom matched the often-heroic work of local responders, doing the job we were built to do.

We made all our coverage free. Here’s a page that collects much of it, along with our award-winning submission to the Pulitzer Prizes.

We reported quickly and carefully, vetting often scattered and confusing facts, making sure we got out the accurate news and information essential to individual and community decision-making. We documented in words, images and videos what people from the reaches of San Lorenzo Valley to Pajaro to Capitola were experiencing. We called on President Joe Biden to visit beleaguered South County as well as jaw-dropping coastal damage. We did what we always do, but at warp speed and still made sure that our deep reporting work got its usual double edits by our experienced, diligent editors. 

We also used every digital means at our disposal to keep getting news and information out. Digital distribution is instantaneous and works for most of you. But our text messaging service often got through to phones, when the internet got interrupted. That allowed us to keep the updates coming, but as the best community radio stations once did. 

In short, we did our jobs, and we heard so many thanks for it. The Pulitzer is icing on that cake.

So, thank you for being our members, readers, marketing partners, civic partners and supporters. of our work. You helped us build the team and the product that could meet the moment. Last week, I told you about our second Lookout in Eugene-Springfield, Oregon, coming soon – and our wider plans to build a Lookout Local network so more communities can get the daily coverage they need – and have trusted journalists ready to meet the community’s unforeseen crisis. 

And if you haven’t yet become a member, there is no day like Pulitzer day to do that. Please join us today. It’s the best way to celebrate with us.

This prize further certifies what we believed as we have all together built Lookout: If you offer a community a new able-to-be-trusted, authentically local news brand, they will come, read and become members.