NEW YORK–As second former Columbus resident has won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018. According to Columbia Journalism Review, Mariel Padilla, 23, a Columbus North High School graduate, won the coveted award for her work on a Cincinnati Enquirer article titled “The Seven Days of Heroin.” It was announced earlier this week that another former resident of Columbus, Erika Espinoza, would also receive the honor.
Padilla is a current student at the Columbia School of Journalism, but had interned at The Enquirer where one of her tasks was to visit the county jail every morning for a week and flag arrest reports for opioid mentions. She and the team soon discovered that there would be gaps in coverage during overnight hours. Padilla then created a database to help fill in those gaps and help the team present a continuous narrative documenting a week in the life of Cincinnati’s opioid crisis, minute-by-minute.
CJR says her story prompted a nationwide conversation about the opioid crisis, reflected in newsrooms around the country.
Click here to read the full CJR article, including more about Padilla’s shock in discovering her win.