Congratulations to the Boston Globe and Washington-bureau reporter Charlie Savage, who’ve won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Savage was honored for his series on President Bush’s use and abuse of presidential signing statements, which he’s employed to sign legislation into law even while signaling that he intends to ignore it.
The prize comes at an interesting moment for the Globe, which has been downsizing its way into an almost entirely local paper. While I think that makes a lot of sense in an era when national and international news sites are just a click away, Savage’s award demonstrates that it’s important for the paper to look beyond Route 495 as well.
The Globe’s other finalist, the Spotlight Team’s “Debtor’s Hell” series (helmed by my Northeastern colleague Walter Robinson), didn’t win. Last week, though, it won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Public Service Award, itself a significant honor.