UIS Public Affairs Reporting Program alum Trif Alatzas leads his team to a Pulitzer Prize win

Trif Alatzas, a 1989 graduate of the University of Illinois Springfield’s Public Affairs Reporting Program (PAR), has led his team to a 2020 Pulitzer Prize win as editor-in-chief of Baltimore Sun Media.

The Baltimore Sun was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh’s ‘Healthy Holly’ book scandal. She was sentenced to three years in federal prison in February after being found guilty of fraud, tax and conspiracy charges.

In a May 4 story published in The Sun, Alatzas calls the award an “all-out effort,” adding he is “just glad to be a part of it.”

This is the second time the Pulitzer Board has recognized a publication led by Alatzas. In 2019, the Pulitzer Board awarded The Capital Gazette a special citation for their work in covering the June 2019 attack on their Annapolis offices that killed five employees.

Alatzas was inducted into the Bill Miller Public Affairs Reporting Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois Springfield in 2019.

The UIS Public Affairs Reporting Program now boasts three Pulitzer Prize-winning alumni, including Alatzas. Other PAR alumni who have won the prize include Kathy Best, former executive editor and managing editor for digital news at the Seattle Times, who led her staff to two Pulitzer Prizes, and Deborah Singer Peterson, a retired reporter, columnist and editorial board member of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

UIS English Department alumnus Mitch Pugh also led his newsroom at The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina to win a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2015.