A blingy nine years

Someone on social media last week mentioned a project I worked on about 9 years ago, a package on Vietnam and the lingering effects of Agent Orange. I'd almost entirely forgotten: This particular package had included my first-ever video explainer.

The video itself is long deleted, along with most of my work from the defunct Cleveland Plain Dealer that I didn't happen to save myself. It's really just as well: This was slow to the point of plodding, amateurishly produced using a home copy of Final Cut Express. I was mainly trying to demonstrate that graphic animations could be the basis for a news video.

The real shock in seeing all this was — you're telling me it's only been nine years? It feels like a lifetime. My experimental transition to video didn't just prolong my career, against considerable odds; it has built me an entirely new career. 

It's landed me two Emmys and a rare (at least in Ohio) SND Digital Award of Excellence. It landed me a job at the Washington Post. Now, it's brought me a Pulitzer.

The Washington Post's environment desk won this year for its 2°C: Beyond the Limit series. My work was integral to this and a prominent piece of the award submission. And we won in the Explanatory Reporting category, a notoriously tough field and the one I would have chosen, if I could have had the choice.

It seems grandiose to even mention this as a career "goal;" it was more like a career wildest dream to one day win an Explanatory Reporting Pulitzer with the Washington Post.

That $30 copy of Final Cut Express sure looks like a wise investment now.