By AP
Detroit, MI – Detroit, MI (AP)
The Detroit Free Press has won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for obtaining a trove of sexually explicit text messages that brought down the city's mayor.
The award was announced Monday after one of the most depressing years the newspaper industry has ever seen, with layoffs, bankruptcies and closings.
It's the ninth Pulitzer for the Free Press, which first released excerpts in January 2008 of the steamy and sexually explicit text messages between then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Chief of Staff Christine Beatty.
The messages were left on Beatty's city-issued
pager.
Both he and Beatty were charged and served time in jail.
The Pulitzers are the most prestigious award in journalism.