Today is Pulitzer day*

The 2011 Pulitzer Prizes winners will be announced at 3 p.m. Eastern today. Names will be posted here.

*Update: The Los Angeles Times won in the public service category for its reports on the City of Bell salary scandal. The investigative award went to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times won for local reporting. In the latter category, the Pulitzer board mentioned that Marshall Allen, formerly of the Pasadena Star-News and now with ProPublica, was a finalist, along with his coauthor Alex Richards.

Four links

1. Almena Lomax, civil rights activist and founder of the Los Angeles Tribune, has died. LAT (found via fishbowlLA)

2. The Center for Public Integrity will launch an investigative journalism website. NYT

3. ProPublica is hiring. ProPublica

4. Small town reporters don't just do small stories. LAT

Four today

1. Ever wonder why some news stories sound like press releases? Sometimes it's because the news stories basically copy huge blocks of text from press releases. A new site, churnalism.com, will help watchdog this shameful habit. PBS

2. Governments employ many layers of lawyers to figure out how not to tell people what's going on. ProPublica has gone through the excuses used to skirt the Freedom of Information Act to show just how its done. ProPublica

3. What's in a name? In the case of Medill journalism school, way too much. Daily Northwestern

4. AOL/Huffington Post is becoming fair and balanced. fishbowlLA

Allen wins national investigative reporting prize

Two Las Vegas Sun reporter have won the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series on substandard medical care in Las Vegas. Splitting the $25,000 prize are Alex Richards and Marshall Allen, a former Pasadena Star-News reporter, who has just taken a job with ProPublica.

(Allen is pictured at far right.)

Allen and Richards took top honors over the highly celebrated duo of Ruben Vives and Jeff Gottlieb, who helped break the story of the salary scandal in the city of Bell, as well as an intensive investigation into massive buildup of America's homeland security apparatus after 9/11 done by the Washington Post. A link to the Sun series is here.

The Sun, which was revitalized by an infusion of money from Brian Greenspun and the leadership of editor Drex Heikes, who helped win the paper a Pulitzer before heading to the LA Weekly, has certainly proven that a newsroom with a free hand to do good work will do good work. Let's hope Heikes can repeat the magic at the Weekly - and that the Weekly owners are paying attention.

Allen goes to ProPublica*

Former Pasadena Star-News reporter Marshall Allen, whose work at the Las Vegas Sun has made him a finalist for the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, has taken a job with ProPublica. Allen will start at the nonprofit news outfit next week. He'll continue covering health care to start.

*In addition: Former Pasadena Star-News reporter Cindy Chang was promoted to special projects writer at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Previously, she worked on the paper's city desk. In her new position, Chang "will be the lead author and coordinator" of the paper's investigative projects.

Four in the afternoon

1. Two from fishbowlLA: Los Angeles Times reporters warned to watch what they're tweeting (link); and Los Angeles Times blogger Andrew Malcolm is told to remove a link to the donation page of Sarah Palin's political action committee and, in doing so, takes the opportunity to once again promote Sarah Palin's political action committee (link and link).

2. ProPublica has video of the police detaining one of the news site's photographers while he was working on a story about BP. The video also shows police giving the photog's personal information to a BP security guard - apparently refineries are a special arm of government. ProPublica

3. Let the outsourcing begin: Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, plans to design papers out of five strategically located hubs. No word yet on whether this means laying off local designers and copy editors. Gannett Blog

4. Track the Gulf Oil spill with AP's spillmeter. AP

BP means "blocking photographers"

ProPublica reports that one of its photographers, working on an investigative story in Texas City, Texas, was detained by local police and British Petroleum security guards after taking pictures near a BP refinery. BP, of course, is responsible for the Deepwater Horizon well that blew on April 20, killing 11 people and subsequently spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

From the story:

The photographer, Lance Rosenfield, said that shortly after arriving in town, he was confronted by a BP security officer, local police and a man who identified himself as an agent of the Department of Homeland Security. He was released after the police reviewed the pictures he had taken on Friday and recorded his date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information.

The police officer then turned that information over to the BP security guard under what he said was standard procedure, according to Rosenfield.

No charges were filed.

Rosenfield, an experienced freelance photographer, said he was detained shortly after shooting a photograph of a Texas City sign on a public roadway. Rosenfield said he was followed by a BP employee in a truck after taking the picture and blocked by two police cars when he pulled into a gas station.

According to Rosenfield, the officers said they had a right to look at photos taken near secured areas of the refinery, even if they were shot from public property. Rosenfield said he was told he would be "taken in" if he declined to comply.

This kind of bullshit has been going on since the Gulf oil spill began.

The secret lives of private jets

ProPublica got its hands on a list of privately owned corporate jets that were kept off the government's air-traffic tracking system and so could not be tracked by the public. The list includes jets owned by several newspaper companies:

Owners of newspapers that have fought for access to public records, including Journal Enterprises, owner of the Albuquerque Journal, and Sam Zell, chairman of the Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Journal Enterprises told ProPublica it would take its plane off the list. Sam Zell's Tribune Co. declined to comment.

Gannett, which owns USA Today, also owns a blocked jet. USA Today ran a version of the ProPublica story and included this fact in the article.

(found via Romenesko)

Rotella leaves the Times for ProPublica

Investigative reporter Sebastian Rotella is leaving the Los Angeles Times after 23 years to work for the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica. Rotella was most recently a national security correspondent for the Times, having been called back to Washington from Paris last year when the Times consolidated its overseas operations.

From ProPublica:

In 2006, he was named a Pulitzer finalist for international reporting for his coverage of terrorism and Muslim communities in Europe. He won the German Marshall Fund's senior award for excellence in European reporting the same year. He was part of a team whose coverage of al-Qaida received an award from the Overseas Press Club and finalist honors for Harvard University's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2002. ... He is the author of Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border[.]

Another Times security reporter, Josh Meyer, just announced his departure, which leaves a gap on the Times' Washington desk.

ProPublica finds failings in Solis' labor department

ProPublica reports that Hilda Solis, a former San Gabriel Valley congresswoman, has failed as Labor Secretary to enforce federal laws designed to protect civilian contractors who are injured while working overseas. From the story:

The department is responsible for overseeing a workers compensation system in which insurance carriers provide coverage to civilians working on overseas federal contracts. Such policies are funded by taxpayers.

But the department has failed to pursue sanctions against corporations accused of ignoring federal requirements to purchase such insurance, according to a ProPublica review of court cases, federal records and interviews with worker advocates.

The department has also taken no action in cases where insurance carriers allegedly provided false or misleading information to the federal government to terminate medical benefits for injured civilians–another potential crime under the law, known as the Defense Base Act.

The lack of enforcement has allowed carriers and contract companies to abuse the system by avoiding or blocking payments, forcing contractors to spend months and sometimes years battling carriers in court for benefits, claimants and their attorneys said.

The story is written by former L.A. Times reporter T. Christian Miller.

Four in the morning*

1. New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin is one of the 70 or so news staffers who took a recent buyout, but he plans to continue his Dot Earth blog at the paper. CJR

2. Former Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Hymon says working for the government (he writes for the MTA) isn't any worse, and may be better, than working for a newspaper. Neon Tommy via LA Observed

3. David Carr at the New York Times writes that the Wall Street Journal's news coverage is taking a conservative turn under Rupert Murdoch's management, and the Wall Street Journal's editor in chief says the New York Times is just jealous. NYT and Poynter (*Update: Carr responds to the uproar via Twitter: Did not intend WSJ col. as purpose punch. Love WSJ, noticed political drift. Wrote what I saw. Not trying to pick fight or carry water.)

4. The new mantra for journalism is cooperation and, to that end, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has teamed up with ProPublica and Frontline to investigate questionable police shootings in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. ProPublica

Four today

1. Chi-Town Daily News finds nonprofit to be not profitable. CTDN (via Romenesko)

2. ProPublica managing editor: The work is different, the job's the same. LAT

3. So who leaked the tape of California Assemblyman Mike Duvall bragging to Assemblyman Jeff Miller about his sexcapades? TPM*

4. Comedy writer Larry Gelbart, best known for MASH, has died. LAT

*Update: I've heard the story, now reported at Editorials From Hell, that FlashReport blogger Jon Fleischman had an axe to grind when it came to Assemblyman Mike Duvall and so was motivated to push the tape of Duvall boasting about his trysts into public view. The story is that Duvall fired Fleischman's wife, Maureen. Fleischman told the OC Register's Brian Joseph that his wife resigned. Even if there was friction, and even if Fleischman did turn the tape over to KCAL for broadcast, and then published his own story seconds later, there's still a question of where he got it from - did Fleischman comb through hours of committee hearings on a hunch? Did Jeff Miller's chief of staff, Brandon Powers, turn it over to him (Powers denies any involvement)? Did a lobbyist listening to the hearing decide to leak the information at just the right time?

Four Sunday

1. The Associated Press plans to distribute the work of four nonprofit news organizations - ProPublica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Center for Public Integrity, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University - to its 1,500 member newspapers. NYT, ProPublica

2. The Long Beach Press-Telegram will be moving once again. All operations, including the newsroom, will be consolidated onto the first floor of the ARCO Tower Building by the end of the month, and will be moved to an as yet undetermined site by the end of the year. Stress-Telegram

3. The Los Angeles Times chronicles the failures of LA County's child welfare program. LAT

4. More on the movement of mobile news. Newspaper Project

Tracking failure (and success)

Database reporting is a somewhat new trend in Internet journalism. Publishers can track data changes over a period of time and provide readers with periodic updates, whether it be the latest homicide or broken promise.

In its relatively short lifespan, the nonprofit ProPublica has become a master of the database, compiling all of "midnight regulations" in the last days of the Bush presidency, for example. Yesterday, the news site launched the "DNA backlog tracker" that will monitor the progress five law enforcement agencies make, or don't make, in eliminating their backlogs of untested DNA evidence. The list includes two California agencies, the Los Angeles Police Department and California Department of Justice, as well as the FBI, Illinois State Police and Virginia Department of Forensic Science. ProPublica is taking suggestions for other agencies to add to the list.

Four in the evening

1. The nonprofit news outlet ProPublica has joined forces with Marketplace to do a comparison of the patchwork unemployment insurance programs across the United States - don't get fired in Mississippi if you can help it. ProPublica

2. The California State Parks Foundation has launched a campaign to stop Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from making real his threat to close up to 200 state parks as way to shave a little from the state's massive budget deficit. CSPF

3. The San Jose Mercury News has promoted Bert Robinson, 47, to be managing editor of the newspaper. He replaces David Satterfield, who left in November. SJMN

4. Another blow to the California ego: Census figures found the state ranks as the 16th lowest when it comes to Internet access for individuals. Capitol Alert

Three from ProPublica

The number of collaborative stories between the nonprofit newsroom of ProPublica and traditional newspapers seems to be on a steady rise. Here are two examples involving the San Diego Union-Tribune and the New York Times, respectively, and a third story ProPublica reported on its own:

Polluting our life line

The bribery business plan

Down and dirty at the SEC