Rowan alumnus Trymaine Lee's coverage helps paper win Pulitzers
Rowan alumnus Trymaine Lee's coverage helps paper win Pulitzers
April 20, 2006
2003 grad part of Times-Picayune team that wins Pulitzer Prizes for Katrina coverage
Rowan University alumnus Trymaine Lee is a member of the reporting team from the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper that has won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
A 2003 graduate of Rowan, where he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism, Lee, 27, joined the Times-Picayune staff a year ago. He was on the police beat just four months when Katrina struck New Orleans beginning August 28, 2005.
The Times-Picayune team won Pulitzers in both the Public Service and Breaking News categories. Both awards, which were announced Monday, were given to the paper's staff as a whole. The Pulitzers will be presented next month at a ceremony on the campus of Columbia University, which administers the prize.
Lee was one of nine Times-Picayune reporters who stayed in New Orleans when rising flood waters forced the evacuation of the newspaper's offices. He stayed at city hall gathering information, not sure when or how he could file his stories since phones and other communications had been cut off.
The Times-Picayune published online for three days before resuming regular publication. For the first time ever, the Pulitzer board this year recognized online news coverage.
"I wasn't sure how to get the information back to our editors," Lee said. "I just kept working and talking to people," said Lee. "The nine of us really bonded together. I'm especially honored to be part of that Breaking News Pulitzer."
Though pleased with the Pulitzers, the enormity of the Katrina tragedy was not lost on Times-Picayune staffers, Lee said.
"For a journalist, winning a Pulitzer is one of the pinnacles," said Lee. "You accept it graciously, of course, but it's tinged with sadness. People died. People were hungry for four or five days. They were suffering. Some are still suffering. There's nothing happy about that."
Lee, who grew up in Chesilhurst, Camden County, graduated from the Milton S. Hershey School in Hershey, Pa., in 1996. He briefly attended Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania before transferring to Camden County College, where he earned his associate's degree in communications in 2000.
He then pursued his bachelor's degree in Rowan's College of Communication. At Rowan, he was a writer for The Whit, the University's award-winning newspaper, and was involved with the Black Student Union and the NAACP.
He credits journalism professors Julia Chang and Kathryn Quigley with leading him into hard news reporting by encouraging him to take an internship with the Philadelphia Daily News, an internship he started two weeks after his graduation from Rowan.
"Though I was serious about school and becoming a professional writer, I wasn't too interested at the time in becoming a newspaper reporter," Lee said. "I always considered myself more of a writer than reporter, and a features writer at best.
"The Daily News internship changed all that," he continued. "I was able to thrust into the streets as a crime reporter. Something about the streets and being able to move freely in them, and get the stories from the most emotionally charged situations was exhilarating. The police. The criminals and crime scene. The victims. The human side of all the players.
"I realized that there was room to write and be creative in hard news, and also room to tell people's stories in a way that reporters often neglect to do."
After leaving the Daily News, Lee held full-time positions at the Philadelphia Triune, the nation's oldest continuously published African-American newspaper, and the Trentonian.
"We are so proud of Trymaine," said Claudia Cuddy, interim chair of Rowan's journalism department. "I'll never forget the day we were introduced. He told me, 'I love writing about all kinds of things.' He was a great student?hard-working and motivated. What a role model for other young journalists."
Rowan University alumnus Trymaine Lee is a member of the reporting team from the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper that has won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
A 2003 graduate of Rowan, where he earned his bachelor's degree in journalism, Lee, 27, joined the Times-Picayune staff a year ago. He was on the police beat just four months when Katrina struck New Orleans beginning August 28, 2005.
The Times-Picayune team won Pulitzers in both the Public Service and Breaking News categories. Both awards, which were announced Monday, were given to the paper's staff as a whole. The Pulitzers will be presented next month at a ceremony on the campus of Columbia University, which administers the prize.
Lee was one of nine Times-Picayune reporters who stayed in New Orleans when rising flood waters forced the evacuation of the newspaper's offices. He stayed at city hall gathering information, not sure when or how he could file his stories since phones and other communications had been cut off.
The Times-Picayune published online for three days before resuming regular publication. For the first time ever, the Pulitzer board this year recognized online news coverage.
"I wasn't sure how to get the information back to our editors," Lee said. "I just kept working and talking to people," said Lee. "The nine of us really bonded together. I'm especially honored to be part of that Breaking News Pulitzer."
Though pleased with the Pulitzers, the enormity of the Katrina tragedy was not lost on Times-Picayune staffers, Lee said.
"For a journalist, winning a Pulitzer is one of the pinnacles," said Lee. "You accept it graciously, of course, but it's tinged with sadness. People died. People were hungry for four or five days. They were suffering. Some are still suffering. There's nothing happy about that."
Lee, who grew up in Chesilhurst, Camden County, graduated from the Milton S. Hershey School in Hershey, Pa., in 1996. He briefly attended Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania before transferring to Camden County College, where he earned his associate's degree in communications in 2000.
He then pursued his bachelor's degree in Rowan's College of Communication. At Rowan, he was a writer for The Whit, the University's award-winning newspaper, and was involved with the Black Student Union and the NAACP.
He credits journalism professors Julia Chang and Kathryn Quigley with leading him into hard news reporting by encouraging him to take an internship with the Philadelphia Daily News, an internship he started two weeks after his graduation from Rowan.
"Though I was serious about school and becoming a professional writer, I wasn't too interested at the time in becoming a newspaper reporter," Lee said. "I always considered myself more of a writer than reporter, and a features writer at best.
"The Daily News internship changed all that," he continued. "I was able to thrust into the streets as a crime reporter. Something about the streets and being able to move freely in them, and get the stories from the most emotionally charged situations was exhilarating. The police. The criminals and crime scene. The victims. The human side of all the players.
"I realized that there was room to write and be creative in hard news, and also room to tell people's stories in a way that reporters often neglect to do."
After leaving the Daily News, Lee held full-time positions at the Philadelphia Triune, the nation's oldest continuously published African-American newspaper, and the Trentonian.
"We are so proud of Trymaine," said Claudia Cuddy, interim chair of Rowan's journalism department. "I'll never forget the day we were introduced. He told me, 'I love writing about all kinds of things.' He was a great student?hard-working and motivated. What a role model for other young journalists."