Parkland parents praise South Florida Sun-Sentinel

It always seemed like an uncomfortable juxtaposition: winning a journalism award for writing about a horrible tragedy, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks or a deadly weather calamity. You would like to believe that any journalist would gladly trade in a trophy to erase a horrible event.

Certainly those who covered the worst high school shooting in American history wish the events of that day never happened. But one paper in particular is being endorsed for journalism’s highest award and you might be surprised who is advocating its coverage.

Two parents who lost children in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings in Parkland, Florida, wrote an open letter Wednesday asking the Pulitzer Prize board to recognize the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for its coverage of the shootings and its aftermath.

Fathers Andrew Pollack and Ryan Petty, in a letter published on Real Clear Education’s website, wrote that most of the national media’s coverage centered on gun control:

“But it was not enough for the families of the children who were murdered. We wanted to know the answers to the question that the media used to ask after a school shooting. How could this have happened? “This was the most avoidable mass murder in American history, enabled by a sheriff’s office and a school district characterized by administrative incompetence so staggering and moral corruption so deep that it took the Sun-Sentinel the better part of the year to uncover it all. But long after the national media moved on to the next controversy, local reporters here kept at it.’’

The letter then linked to several articles written by the Sun-Sentinel. Brittany Wallman, one of the Sun-Sentinel reporters who has covered the Parkland shootings, tweeted:

“This means a lot to me personally — that Parkland parents felt we channeled the grief into something productive and used the power of the press the way it was intended.’’

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