News reporting that changed things

This year’s Pulitzer Prizes recognized reporting and writing that not only created a buzz among the media elite but also from the general public.

The big winners for public service journalism were The New York Times and The New Yorker in their telling of the Harvey Weinstein story, which resonated in the halls of every American institution. And it did so because the teams that reported it—led by the Times’ Jodi Cantor and Megan Twohey and The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow—took a leap of faith and reported the sexual abuse accusations against Weinstein based on interviews with alleged victims and not with police. A similar effort won The Washington Post the Pulitzer for investigative reporting for its story about the accusations of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior with teenager girls against former U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama.

Journalism schools historically taught students to protect themselves from libel accusations by relying on police, not victims, to identify the suspects of crimes. By pushing back against those limits, which served to shield abusers, journalists ushered in a new era of accountability for sexual assault.

Another remarkable effort to tell the truth—albeit with obscene references and lyrics—won rapper Kendrick Lamar the Pulitzer for music, the first given to a mainstream popular artist. Lamar’s 2017 album explored God’s sovereignty, wrath, and judgment along with the hopes and desperation of African-Americans. The Pulitzer website describes the album as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”

One other Pulitzer Prize–winning story didn’t get quite as much national attention. The Cincinnati Enquirer’s “Seven Days of Heroin” feature, which won for local reporting, brings the opioid crisis home for anyone who thinks of it as “someone else’s problem.” An older couple tries to adopt the children whose neglected cries they can hear from the house of addicts next door. A funeral director shows a woman her son’s body but explains that because he lay dead for so long after his heroin overdose, “All you are going to see is his face.” A coroner comforts two paramedics who are discouraged because they couldn’t save a woman who overdosed: “You did everything you could do.” In the years to come, Americans might look back on this story and the opioid crisis in general and ask in response, “But did we?”

Also worth noting: Reuters won the Pulitzer for feature photography for images of Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled what the UN called “ethnic cleansing” in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

Modus operandi

Jurors learned this week that Bill Cosby regularly gave Benadryl and quaaludes, a sedative, to women he wanted to have sex with, “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.’” In a 2005 deposition, which was read to jurors in Cosby’s ongoing sexual assault retrial, Cosby admitted to having a sexual encounter with Andrea Constand in 2004 but said it was consensual because she did not voice her rejection. Constand claims, like numerous other women, that Cosby drugged and abused her. Her case is the only one against Cosby to make it to trial, largely because the statute of limitations has passed for many of the others. Jurors this week also heard testimony from Marguerite Jackson, a former co-worker of Constand’s, who said Constand told her she planned to make up sexual allegations against a high-profile person to get money from a lawsuit. Lawyers for the prosecution tried to discredit Jackson’s testimony by saying she could not have been with Constand at the time the admission allegedly took place. The defense lost another motion for a mistrial this week on grounds the prosecution mistreated Jackson. Cosby’s first trial in the case ended last year with a deadlocked jury. —L.L.

Moving on

The Fearless Girl statue erected just a little more than a year ago opposite Wall Street’s bronze Charging Bull will move on to a new home near the New York Stock Exchange. Financial investment company State Street Global Advisors commissioned the statue of a girl with her hands on her hips and chin held high “to take steps to increase the number of women” on corporate boards. The girl has made the plaza where she stands a crowded tourist destination in New York. But not everyone is pleased: Arturo di Modica, the artist who sculpted the Wall Street bull (itself a piece of pop-up art that became an iconic part of the streetscape), said the girl was a veiled advertisement that twisted the meaning of his artwork so the bull now looks like it’s attacking women. State Street originally only planned to leave the statue up a few days, but the city extended its permit for a year because of the interest it generated. —L.L.

Unknown origin

A Minnesota prosecutor said Thursday he will not file any charges in the death of the rock star Prince, who died two years ago from an overdose of the powerful opioid fentanyl. If investigators know where Prince got the fentanyl, they aren’t saying. Carver County Attorney Mark Metz said Prince thought he was taking the narcotic Vicodin, but the investigation found no evidence that any of his known associates provided him with the counterfeit drug. Prince was 57 when he was found alone and unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park studio compound on April 21, 2016. —L.L.

All I want for Christmas …

A Fender guitar that belonged to Stevie Ray Vaughan early in his career sold at auction Sunday for $250,000. The winning bidder has not been identified. The legendary blues musician’s brother Jimmie gave him the 1951-model guitar in the late 1960s. “Jimbo” is carved on the back. Vaughan traded the guitar away in 1971 but later said he wished he had it back. He died in a helicopter crash in 1990. —L.L.

Big business

Is Netflix the new Disney? Not if Disney has anything to say about it. This long read from The Atlantic on Disney’s plot to unseat Netflix elegantly describes the upheaval that streaming entertainment has caused in the movie and TV businesses. —L.L.