The Pulitzer Prizes board gave a nod to the increasingly online medium of journalism Monday as it announced its 2012 awards, noting online components to print stories. Still, of the 14 journalism awards given, nine went to journalists at daily newspapers.

Surprise winners included the Huffington Post, for national reporting; the Stranger, an alternative weekly in Seattle, for feature reporting; and the online site POLITICO, for editorial cartoon.  

Finalists for The Pulitzer Prizes, based at Columbia University in New York City, are judged by a board made up mostly of editors, publishers and university professors.

In the Letters, Drama and Music category, Manning Marable won a posthumous award for "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention."

The winners are listed below (links take you to the original stories or works):  

Journalism

• The Philadelphia Inquirer won the Public Service category for examining violence in the city’s schools. The board commended powerful narrative and online videos about child-on-child violence.

• In the Breaking News category, the Tuscaloosa News staff of Alabama won for its coverage of a deadly tornado. The board noted the staff’s use of social media to provide real-time updates.

• The Associated Press and the Seattle Times both won the Investigative category, the AP for covering the New York Police Department’s clandestine spying program, and the Seattle Times for stories about a governmental body that moved patients from pain control medication to methadone.

• Dave Kocieniewski of The New York Times won for Explanatory Reporting for his series about how the nation’s rich avoid taxes.

• For Local Reporting, the Patriot-News Staff in Harrisburg, Penn. Won for breaking the story of Jerry Sandusky, the former football coach accused of molesting young boys.

• David Wood of the Huffington Post won the National Reporting award for his stories about the physical and emotional toll war has taken on American soldiers.

• Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times won for what the board called his "vivid reports, often at personal peril, on famine and conflict in East Africa, a neglected but increasingly strategic part of the world."

• Eli Sanders of the Stranger won the Feature Reporting prize for his gripping narrative about a woman who survived an attack in her home that left her partner dead.  

• Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune won for Commentary, specifically her "down-to-earth columns that reflect the character and capture the culture of her famed city."

• In Criticism, Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe won for his film criticisms, which span art house to box office.

• No award was given in the Editorial Writing category (the last time the award was not presented in this category was 2008).

• Matt Wuerker of POLITICO won the Editorial Cartooning prize.

• Massoud Hossaini of the Agence France-Presse won the Breaking News Photography award.

• Craig F. Walker won for Feature Photography for photos of an honorably discharged veteran home from Iraq.  

Letters, Drama and Music

• No award was given in Fiction, the first time since 1977. (Before 1977, however, the Fiction award was not presented every year.)

• Quiara Alegria Hudes won the Drama award for “Water by the Spoonful,” about an Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in Philadelphia. 

• For History, Manning Marable won for his book about Malcolm X.

• John Lewis Gaddis won the Biography prize for his book, “George F. Kennan: An American Life,” about a globetrotting diplomat during the Cold War.

• In Poetry, Tracy K. Smith won for her collection, “Life on Mars.”

• Stephen Greenblatt won the General Nonfiction category for his book, “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.”

• In Music, Kevin Puts won for “Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts,” an account of World War I that premiered at the Minnesota Opera.

More about the winners is available at the Pulitzer Prizes website.

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