This was a good year for journalists to catch a politician in flagrante delicto, or anything approaching such a compromised position, judging by a couple of this year’s picks for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.

Forbes notes that coverage of the financial crisis was relatively absent from the lineup of Pulitzer winners, an interesting and disturbing development.

On a much happier note, The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, whose column runs on Truthdig, too, was a very deserving awardee for his coverage of Campaign ’08.

AP via Breitbart.com:

The Las Vegas Sun won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for exposing a high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip. The New York Times received five Pulitzers, including one for breaking the call-girl scandal that destroyed Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s career.

The Detroit Free Press won in the local reporting category for obtaining a trove of sexually explicit text messages that brought down the city’s mayor. The judges also awarded a Pulitzer in local reporting to the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz., for revealing how a sheriff’s focus on immigration enforcement endangered investigations of other crimes.

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