Thursday, June 23, 2011

POLICY: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Undocumented Immigrant III

The saddest part of the story is that the Washington Post, the journalist's own publication, declined the story:

Carlos Lozada, editor of the Post’s weekend Outlook section, confirmed to The Huffington Post that Vargas came to the paper with the story.

“I worked on it for some weeks with the intention of possibly running it in Outlook,” Lozada said. “Ultimately, the decision was to not move forward with it.”

(...)

Post management plays a small role in the story. Vargas writes how assistant managing editor Peter Perl, then the director of newsroom training, knew about his undocumented status and kept that fact hidden during the journalist's tenure. It's unclear whether a Post manager's role could have led to the paper not running the story (which undoubtedly would have found a home elsewhere and did).

Coratti said that "what Peter did was wrong," but declined to discuss individual personnel matters.