Alice Crites

Alice R. Crites is a Washington Post librarian and the researcher on the three-member team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.[1]

Alice Crites
OccupationResearcher
Known forPulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting[8]

Crites has been a researcher on six different Pulitzer-winning teams at Washington Post, 2006, 2008, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.[9][10] She is an advocate for the role of researchers and news libraries in the support of journalism, saying "We're cost effective. We're expert searchers.... We not only get information, but also help avoid making mistakes."[11]

Early life and education

Crites is the daughter of an NIH cancer researcher and a librarian for the Montgomery County Schools.[9] She graduated from University of Maryland, and received an M.A. in English and literary criticism from Carnegie Mellon University.[12] She worked for the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress before getting her MLS from the University of Maryland.[12][13][14]

Career

Crites started as a weekend worker at the Washington Post in 1990 and was hired full-time in 1992.[9] She specializes in research and reporting on government and politics; she has covered elections since 1994.[12] Her writing has appeared in the Seattle Times and Washington Post[15][11] She worked with the Post's print news library, the News Research Center, which included approximately "7,500 books, 30 periodicals a month and 15 daily newspapers."[16] In more recent years, she's used computer-assisted reporting as well as many specialty databases to pursue her work, noting in 2007 that some material—U.S. senators' legal defense fund documents, for example—could still only be accessed in person.[13]

Part of Crites' work investigating Senate candidate Roy Moore involved combating misinformation that was being disseminated by Project Veritas to try to discredit the Washington Post's reporting.[9] Crites uncovered a GoFundMe page that linked Project Veritas to a woman who had been telling the Post that Roy Moore had impregnated her as a legally-underage teenager, and urging them to report on it.[17] She also directly refuted Moore's claim's that an Alabama county didn't sell alcohol—when he'd been accused of procuring alcohol for a minor in that county—by finding evidence that the county allowed liquor sales seven years before the event occurred.[9] Her research allowed the Post to outline a clear well-established case against Moore.[18]

References
  1. "The 2018 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Investigative Reporting: Staff of The Washington Post". Pulitzer Prize. Retrieved 2021-05-01. For purposeful and relentless reporting that changed the course of a Senate race in Alabama by revealing a candidate's alleged past sexual harassment of teenage girls and subsequent efforts to undermine the journalism that exposed it.
  2. "Winners 2015 - National Reporting Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post". pulitzer.org. Retrieved 8 February 2022. The agency added a series of surveillance cameras in 2012, giving authorities a full view of the perimeter. Alice Crites and Julie Tate contributed
  3. "Winners 2006 - Investigative Reporting Susan Schmidt, James V. Grimaldi and R. Jeffrey Smith of The Washington Post". pulitzer.org. Retrieved 8 February 2022. Researchers Alice Crites, Lucy Shackelford and Don Pohlman contributed
  4. "Winners 2017 - National Reporting David A. Fahrenthold of The Washington Post". pulitzer.org. Retrieved 8 February 2022. Alice Crites contributed to this report
  5. "Winners 2016 - National Reporting The Washington Post Staff". pulitzer.org. Retrieved 8 February 2022. Alice Crites and Steven Rich contributed to this report.
  6. "Winners 2008 - Breaking News Reporting Staff of The Washington Post Staff". pulitzer.org. Retrieved 8 February 2022. researchers Alice Crites, Meg Smith and Julie Tate also contributed to this narrative.
  7. "Winners 2018 - National Reporting Staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post". pulitzer.org. Retrieved 8 February 2022. Alice Crites contributed to this report.
  8. Loughlin, Wendy S. (5 December 2018). "Call for Entries: Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting". Syracuse University News. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
  9. Beard, David (2018-04-24). "Morning Mediawire: The Pulitzer-laden researcher embedded in the Post newsroom". Poynter. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
  10. Beard, David (13 February 2018). "Digging in stark times: News researchers lead on big stories". Poynter. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
  11. Lineberry, William (2018-08-06). "A newsroom 'detective' reflects on helping the Washington Post win a 2018 Pulitzer". Virginia Press Association. Retrieved 2021-05-01.
  12. "People - Alice Crites". washington post.
  13. Garvin, Peggy. "The Government Domain: Journalists and Government Information: SLA-DGI/GODORT Joint Meeting". LLRX – Law and Technology Resources for Legal Professionals. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
  14. "Alice Crites, MLS". University of Maryland College of Information Studies. 28 September 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
  15. "Author- Alice Crites". seattle times.
  16. Howell, Deborah (2006-07-02). "The Post's Unsung Sleuths". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
  17. Boburg, Shawn; Davis, Aaron; Crites, Alice (November 27, 2017). "A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation". Washington Post. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  18. Zurawik, David (November 19, 2017). "As Post offiers Clarity, Hannity Brings Confusion". The Baltimore Sun. p. E1. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.