The Pulitzer Prize announced today that the Anchorage Daily News won its coveted Public Service award. The reporter leading the ADN’s investigative team grew up in Skagway.
Kyle Hopkins attended Skagway High and after his first years studying journalism at University of Alaska Fairbanks, returned to the Gateway to the Klondike as an intern at the Skagway News.
“I threw all other applications away that year because this was a Skagway kid,” said Jeff Brady, who was the newspaper’s publisher at the time. He said he remembers Hopkin’s coverage of the Dyea to Dawson Centennial and how quickly he took to local reporting.
“I was surprised because I didn’t really see that in him growing up so much as becoming a journalist. And now he’s like one of the top journalists in the world,” said Brady.
“I mean, this is the greatest honor in journalism, what he just won. It’s the Public Service award, which carries more weight than really all the other awards combined.”
The ADN won the Public Service Prize for “Lawless,” the investigative series that exposed insufficient policing in a third of Alaska’s villages. It led to a visit from federal authorities, legislative changes, and increased funding to help solve the problem. Brady said he was proud to be a small part of Hopkin’s path.
“We all start somewhere small. And it started in a UAF classroom. It started in the Skagway News. He just took it and just ran with it and has done incredibly well. I’m just, you know, so proud of him. And it’s it’s a real honor for Skagway as well, to know that a kid growing up here can go really far,” he said.
The series beat out two formidable finalists—Washington Post and The New York Times—for the honor.
