NEW YORK -- The Miami Herald Tuesday won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of Hurricane Andrew and the Los Angeles Times won for spot news reporting for its description of the second day of the Los Angeles riots.
The Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to 'A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain' by Robert Olen Butler, the author of six novels who teaches at McNeese University at Lake Charles, La.
'This is quite an astonishing thing,' said Butler. 'If you have for a long time felt there are stories to be told and you write books, this is the reward you dream of.'
The Herald staff, despite the massive devastation and disruption of Hurricane Andrew Aug. 24, managed to produce a special edition before the storm and another as soon as the wind stopped, in addition to the regular issue.
'We produced three editions within 24 hours, by dint of extraordinary will and ingenuity and craft from people all over the newspaper,' said Herald Executive Editor Doug Clifton. 'I think the people in production were among the heroes.'
Reporters Jeff Brazil and Steve Berry of Florida's Orlando Sentinel won the prize for investigative reporting with their stories on the seizure of millions of dollars from motorists by a sheriff's drug squad.
'Everything you say about winning a Pulitzer sounds trite,' said Berry. 'Every reporter, when they write their first story, they think about the Pulitzer. Actually winning it, it doesn't seem real,' he said.
Mike Toner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution won the prize for explanatory journalism for his series on the diminishing effectiveness of antibiotics and pesticides.
Paul Ingrassia and Joseph B. White of the Wall Street Journal won for beat reporting for their 'often exclusive coverge of General Motors' management turmoil.'
'It's very gratifying,' Ingrassia said from his Detroit office. 'It's also very humbling in a way. It makes you realize all the breaks you've had in your life and on the General Motors story, we've been very fortunate to have had a lot of breaks.
Said White, 'I'm quite thrilled. I didn't think they gave prizes for doing what I do, for beat reporting, just slogging away.'
The national reporting prize went to David Maraniss of the Washington Post for his stories on the life and political record of Bill Clinton.
John F. Burns of The New York Times and Roy Gutman of Newsday won for international reporting for their stories of the brutal warfare in the former Yugoslavia.
Burns' prize came for his reporting of the destruction of Sarajevo and the killings in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
'I think the entire world of journalism rejoices in the award that went to John Burns who did a breathtaking job at pursuing the story in Sarajevo at great personal risk,' said Max Frankel, executive editor of the paper.
Gutman was honored for his coverage of the atrocities and other human rights violations in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
'The story goes on, the atrocities go on, the killing goes on. I don't think one can celebrate anything,' Gutman said in a statement. 'This is not over.'
The feature writing prize went to George Lardner Jr. of the Washington Post for 'his unflinching examination of his daughter's murder by a violent man who had slipped through the criminal justice system.'
Liz Balmaseda of the Miami Herald won for commentary for her dispatches from Haiti about deteriorating social conditions and her columns about Cuban-Americans in Miami.
Michael Dirda of the Washington Post was awarded the criticism prize for his book reviews.
There was no award for editorial writing.
Stephen R. Benson of the Arizona Republic won for editorial cartooning.
Ken Geiger and William Snyder of the Dallas Morning News won for spot news photography for their coverage of the 1992 summer Olympics.
The feature photography prize went to the Associated Press staff forits portfolio of images drawn from the 1992 presidential campaign.
'Angels in America: Millennium Approaches,' a fantasy view of the Reagan era by Tony Kushner, won the drama prize.
'I'm overjoyed at the news,' said Kushner, 36, just prior to the play's first preview performance on Broadway.
'It feels unreal to say that -- like a line a character might speak but not something I imagined I'd have the opportunity to say. It's a great honor ....'
'Truman' by David McCullough, a best-selling study of Harry S Truman and his era that was 10 years in the writing, was picked for the prize in biography.
The history prize went to 'The Radicalism of the American Revolution' by Gordon S. Wood (Knopf), a professor of history at Brown University, Providence, R.I.
The prize in general non-fiction went to Garry Wills for his 'Lincoln at Gettsburg: The Words That Remade America,' (Simon & Schuster).
Louise Gluck's 'The Wild Iris,' (Ecco Press), won the prize for poetry.
The music prize went to 'Trombone Concerto' by Christopher Rouse.
