The Monthly journalism award.

• Position: Brief article

McClatchy Newspapers, Washington Bureau Reporting on the U.S. attorney firings, March 2007

The expanding investigation into the Bush administration's purge of eight U.S. attorneys was initially sparked by new media. In particular, Joshua Micah Marshall's blog, Talking Points Memo, was instrumental in driving the U.S. attorney scandal onto the front pages and to the forefront of the public consciousness. But it was only able to do so with the help of old-fashioned newspaper reporting that supplied crucial details of the evolving scandal. While many mainstream newspapers initially ignored the affair, the reporting by journalists in McClatchy's Washington, D.C., bureau has been exemplary. McClatchy reporters often turned to sources outside Washington to...