Sun-Times Wins Pulitzer

By Chuck Sudo in News on Apr 18, 2011 9:00PM

Congratulations are in order for Sun-Times reporters Frank Main and Mark Konkol, and photographer John J. Kim. The three were awarded Pulitzer Prizes today for local reporting for their exhaustive series on 59 hours of violence that occurred between April 18 and April 20, 2008. During those 59 hours, 40 people were shot; seven died.

The series went beyond Mayor Daley's persistent exhortations for tighter gun control laws and revealed an ineffective crime prevention policy was more to blame. Konkol notes in a blog post last July during the height of the report that the Police Department only cleared 18 percent. And half of those were cleared exceptionally, which meant 90 percent of shooters were never charged with a crime.

It's the Sun-Times first Pulitzer in 22 years. Main, Kim and Konkol join the ranks of Roger Ebert, photographer John H. White and political cartoonist Jack Higgins as Pulitzer winners for the paper.