Stephanie Saul is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist known for her work at '' Newsday'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''.

Early life

Saul grew up in

New Albany, Mississippi New Albany is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Mississippi, United States. According to the 2020 United States Census, the population was 7,626. History New Albany was first organized in 1840 at the site of a grist mill and saw mil ...

. In middle school, she wrote the "Snoop" column for the school newspaper. In high school, she was the editor for the school's newspaper, and graduated in 1972 as part of the first fully desegregated class in New Albany. Saul entered the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi ( byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment ...

in 1972 intending to pursue a medical career after graduation, which she saw as a better career opportunity than journalism. She took journalism classes along with her pre-med studies and served on the staff of the yearbook and the school newspaper, the ''

Daily Mississippian ''The Daily Mississippian'', commonly called ''The DM'', is the student newspaper of the University of Mississippi. The first issue of The Mississippian was published in 1911. It is operated as an independent student-run newspaper, and is publis ...

''. In 1975, she graduated with a B.A. in Journalism and membership in the

Phi Kappa Phi The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (or simply Phi Kappa Phi or ) is an honor society established in 1897 to recognize and encourage superior scholarship without restriction as to area of study, and to promote the "unity and democracy of education ...

honors society.

Career

Saul began her journalism career working for ''

The Clarion-Ledger ''The Clarion Ledger'' is an American daily newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi. It is the second-oldest company in the state of Mississippi, and is one of the few newspapers in the nation that continues to circulate statewide. It is an operating d ...

'' in Jackson, Mississippi, covering the state government and the state legislature. In 1980, Saul, fellow reporter Patrick Larking, and photographers Laura Lynn Fistler and Tom Hayes earned ''The Clarion-Ledger'' the

Silver Gavel Award The Silver Gavel Award (also known as the ABA Silver Gavel Awards for Media and The Arts) is an annual award the American Bar Association gives to honor outstanding work by those who help improve comprehension of jurisprudence in the United State ...

from the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

for their feature article on jail conditions in Mississippi. In 1981, Saul and W. Stevens Ricks received the

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

for Regional Reporting for their article "Mississippi Gulf Coast: Wide Open and Wicked." While working for ''

The Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. In fall 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily and 15th on Sunday. As of Ma ...

'', Saul, Mary Anne Sharkey, and W. Steve Ricks wrote a multi-part series in 1985 titled "A Law Unto Himself" that exposed the corrupt practices of Ohio Supreme Court Justice

Frank Celebrezze Frank D. Celebrezze Jr. (November 13, 1928 – March 21, 2010) was an American politician and jurist of the Ohio Democratic party, having served as Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. He was elected as a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court i ...

. Fallout from the series led to his electoral defeat in 1986. Saul joined ''Newsday'' in 1984 and was the paper's national reporter from 1994 to 2000. Together with Brian Donovan, she earned the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting " ortheir stories that revealed disability pension abuses by local police." Their investigation found a number of retired police officers in the state of New York receiving millions in disability payments for minor injuries. Saul moved to ''The New York Times'' in 2005. Her article on the ''

Deepwater Horizon ''Deepwater Horizon'' was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion ...

'' disaster, co-authored with

David Barstow David Barstow (born 1963) is an American journalist and professor. While a reporter at ''The New York Times'' from 1999 to 2019, Barstow was awarded, individually or jointly, four Pulitzer Prizes, becoming the first reporter in the history of the ...

and

David Rohde David Stephenson Rohde (born August 7, 1967) is an American author and investigative journalist who currently serves as the online news director for ''The New Yorker''. While a reporter for ''The Christian Science Monitor'', he won the Pulitzer ...

, formed the basis for the 2016 film of the same name.

Personal life

Saul and her husband, fellow ''Times'' reporter

Walt Bogdanich Walt Bogdanich (born October 10, 1950) is an American investigative journalist and three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. Life Bogdanich graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975 with a degree in political science. He recei ...

, have two sons.

References

External links

"Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours"
the basis for the film ''

''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Saul, Stephanie American newspaper writers Living people Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting winners University of Mississippi alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) American women journalists George Polk Award recipients 21st-century American women