The Staff of Lookout Santa Cruz: The People vs. the Storms
Ocean swells knocked out the front wall of Eric Stark’s oceanfront home in Rio Del Mar on Jan. 5, 2023 / Photographer: Kevin Painchaud
A transcript to this episode is available here.
Lookout Santa Cruz, a small digital news outlet that covers the region of Santa Cruz, California, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for its detailed and nimble community-focused coverage, over a holiday weekend, of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that displaced thousands of residents and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses. Click here to read Lookout's prize-winning reporting.
The storms occurred in early 2023, when Santa Cruz County was hit with nine atmospheric rivers that caused widespread displacement and devastation. During this period, the six reporters on staff at Lookout Santa Cruz – a roughly two-year old digital news outlet – stretched themselves thin providing in-depth coverage of the region’s most vulnerable communities.
In this episode, members of Lookout’s staff take us back to that time to discuss covering climate catastrophes as a small news organization and why local newsrooms are critical to upholding democracy.
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The Pulitzer on the Road Podcast is a production of the Pulitzer Prize Board and is produced by Pineapple Street Studios. Our host is Nicole Carroll, Pulitzer Board member and professor of practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Senior producer is Justine Daum, and executive producers are Bari Finkel and Pulitzer Administrator Marjorie Miller.
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