How they won

Ronnie Polaneczky has the remarkable backstory of how the dynamic duo of the Daily News, Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting:

Nothing psychs Barb and Wendy more than venturing into some of the city's roughest neighborhoods, with only their wits and a deep compassion for the disenfranchised citizens who call the Daily News when they have nowhere else to turn.

These folks are off the grid: They're not plugged, in any way, into the network of power that keeps many people in this city from dropping through the cracks of luck or justice when life flips them upside down.

They don't have a brother-in-law who knows someone in City Council who might return their calls when they have a problem they can't resolve.

They don't have a cousin who's a paralegal and knows a lawyer who might listen to the nightmare they're living through.

Sometimes, their drama is of their own making. Sometimes it's not. But when these people call, it's up to this paper's writers and editors - a dwindling but committed crew, in a decimated industry - to sort out the crazies from the real victims.

One irony in all of this is that before yesterday, out in the ether of journalism punditry, there was a lot of speculation over whether the National Enquirer would get a Pulitzer for its expose of the sex life of John Edwards (which hit the fan after Edwards had already dropped his 2008 White House bid.) Instead, the Pulitzer judges rewarded a different kind of "tabloid journalism" -- the old-school kind, which is sticking up for the little guy, comforting the afflicting and afflicting the comfortable. Barbara and Wendy went after crooked cops in Philadelphia for only one reason: They thought it was the right thing to do.

Amazingly, sometimes somebody notices that.

In case you're wondering what it was like in the (increasingly small) Daily News newsroom when the news hit, here's the video: