Photo: Pulitzer.org

The beleaguered New York Times had a triumph this afternoon when it was announced that the paper won five Pulitzer Prizes, for Investigative Reporting, Breaking News Reporting, Feature Photography, International Reporting, and Criticism. The photography award went to Damon Winter for his work capturing the Barack Obama presidential campaign, the breaking-news prize went to the investigative team that unearthed the prostitution scandal that brought down Eliot Spitzer, and the international award went to the reporters who covered the deepening American military challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The St. Petersburg Times won two medals, for National Reporting and Feature Writing. The Miami Herald, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times also took home honors. In the arts, Elizabeth Strout won in fiction for her Olive Kitteridge, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham won for his biography of Andrew Jackson, Lynn Nottage won for her play Ruined, and W.S. Merwin won in the Poetry category for The Shadow of Sirius.

2009 Award Winners [Pulitzer.org]