Houston Chronicle's Lisa Falkenberg wins Pulitzer Prize for Commentary

Houston Chronicle Metro columnist Lisa Falkenberg was named winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, one of 14 awards announced Monday in the most prestigious contest in American journalism.

A Chronicle columnist for eight years and a Pulitzer finalist last year, Falkenberg was honored for a series of 10 columns, a number of which dealt with a corrupt and abusive grand jury system. Those columns focused on the case of Alfred Dewayne Brown, who was indicted for murder in connection with the shooting of a Houston police officer despite evidence that appeared to confirm his alibi.

The Pulitzer judges in the Commentary category praised Falkenberg for "vividly-written, ground-breaking columns about grand jury abuses that led to a wrongful conviction and other egregious problems in the legal and immigration systems."

The Pulitzer award was the first for the Houston Chronicle. The newspaper had been a finalist on five previous occasions, including Falkenberg in the same category in 2014.

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In addition:

• The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service
• Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
• Ziva Branstetter and Cary Aspinwall of the Tulsa World were finalists in the Local Reporting category for courageous reporting on the execution process in Oklahoma after a botched execution – reporting that began a national discussion.
• Marisa Taylor, Jonathan Landay and Ali Watkins of McClatchy Newspapers were finalists in the National Reporting category for timely coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture, demonstrating initiative and perseverance in overcoming government efforts to hide the detail.