Pulitzer material

In 2023, Alabama’s 1819 News broke what became a national news story that went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, but not for the journalist who first reported it. Craig Monger, a 28-year-old reporter at the digital news startup, revealed pastor and popular Smiths Station, Ala., Mayor Bubba Copeland led a very different life online, posting explicit transgender content and erotic fiction. A few days after the story came out, Copeland took his own life. As part of her reporting on 1819 News (see “Alabama’s chief muckraker,”  in this issue), Kim Henderson talked to Monger and visited Smiths Station. I asked her to share more about what she learned.

You note in your story that the Bubba Copeland coverage prompted a lot of pushback for 1819 News. What kinds of things did Monger endure? The onslaught after Copeland’s suicide was immediate. Hundreds of messages on Twitter, hundreds of emails. Craig’s detractors posted his address and pictures of his kids on Facebook. They threatened to rape and murder his family and burn his house down. His wife and children stayed with relatives, but Craig decided to remain at home to protect their property. Eventually the whole family left the area for a week. They’ve since installed alarms on their home doors, and they’ve gotten a driveway alert. But even now, more than two years later, Craig is still getting threats. He showed me one he’d gotten the day I interviewed him.

Winning the Pulitzer is every reporter’s dream. How did Monger react to the news that a story about his work had won that award for another writer? He says he had a good laugh. It stung, of course, but he wrote a tongue-in-cheek acceptance speech for his group of 1819 reporters to enjoy in their text loop. I later heard him give a real speech about breaking the Copeland story. He joked that it’s not often a journalist’s work wins a Pulitzer Prize. It’s even less often that work results in a Pulitzer Prize for someone else.

Bryan Dawson told you he would publish the story again, despite the criticism. Why? The press wields influence beyond reporting, especially when it comes to accountability. Someone had to hold Copeland accountable for his actions, which had gone beyond the bounds of private to public and possibly even criminal. I’ve wondered if some of the criticism of 1819 News coming from other media outlets is rooted in embarrassment that they didn’t report the Copeland story first.

And yet, when you visited Smiths Station, you learned some residents didn’t think it was right for 1819 News to expose Copeland. Why? They still refer to it as an “outing,” rather than a journalistic endeavor. They wrongly insist what Copeland was doing didn’t hurt anyone. I interviewed a pastor in the area to get his take on why people were willing to overlook such behavior from a public figure, and he blamed our culture’s distorted view of sin. If Copeland had been embezzling, he believes, they would be thanking Craig for exposing it.