Pick of the Pulitzers

The winners of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize awards have been announced. The awards celebrate the finest American journalism of the year. Reportage from the ruins of Baghdad, an investigation of desperate times in a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina and an exposé of a bent narc squad in Philadelphia are among the work honored. Beneath are links to some of the key articles and series that make up the list. (Don't forget, the winners of The Week's own Opinion Awards will be announced on April 20. Check back with TheWeek.com that night for live video streaming of Rahm Emanuel's address from the ceremony and a special Twitter event):

Breaking News Reporting: The staff of the Seattle Times took the award for its reporting of an Arkansas man who shot and killed four police officers in Lakewood, WA. Here's "A Path to Murder," one of the key articles in the newspaper's coverage of the crime.

Investigative Reporting: Sheri Fink of ProPublica won an award for "The Deadly Choices at Memorial," a piece about doctors at a hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina who were forced to take matters of life and death into their own hands.

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Feature Writing: Gene Weingarten's piece "Fatal Distraction" is a harrowing piece published in the Washington Post about people who have made the tragic mistake of forgetting a child in the backseat of a car. The piece was reprinted in The Week as a Last Word.

Investigative Reporting: Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman exposed a rogue police narcotics squad in a series of pieces for the Philadelphia Daily News. Here's "The Informer, The Cop and the Conspiracy," the piece that started it all.

Explanatory Reporting: Michael Moss was commended for his reporting in the New York Times on food safety and contamined meat. "The Burger That Shattered Her Life" is from last October.

Commentary Writing: Kathleen Parker, also of the Washington Post, won an award for what the judges called her "perceptive, often witty columns." Here's "Palin's cover wasn't blown," a piece about the ever-divisive former Alaska governor.

National Reporting: Matt Richtel and other members of the New York Times were honored for their series on the dangers of using a cellphone behind the wheel. Here's "U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving," an investigative piece by Richtel himself.

International Reporting: Pulitzer judges commended Anthony Shahid of the Washington Post for his "rich, beautifully written" pieces on Iraq as it struggles with the legacy of war. "In The City of Cement" is a piece of reportage from Baghdad published last September.

Criticism: Sarah Kaufman's win for her dance criticism helped the Washington Post to its fourth 2010 Pulitzer. "A One-Man Movement" made the case for "kinetic acting," a sort of dance-acting hybrid practised by actors - says Kaufman - such as Cary Grant and Gary Cooper.

Local Reporting: Raquel Rutledge's series on fraud and abuse in a local childcare program for low-wage working parents ran in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The entire "Cashing in on Kids" series can be read here.

Public Service: The Bristol (VA) Herald Courier's Daniel Gilbert won the award for his series on how landowners were conned out of money from Southwest Virginia's lucrative gas wells.