Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting

Shortly after the Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, reporters from The Washington Post came together to analyze the weapon of choice for 10 of the 17 deadliest U.S. mass shootings since 2012, including the 2022 Texas massacre.

Their sobering examination of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle would win the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting, with two Blue Hens making important contributions to the series.

Todd Frankel, an alumnus from the Class of 1997, served as lead reporter for a story on how the weapon, once shunned by gun manufacturers, came to dominate the marketplace. He also co-authored an article on the likelihood of high-capacity-magazine bans. Paul Kane, an alumnus from the Class of 1992, co-wrote the final story in the package, spotlighting senators who regretted their post-Sandy Hook vote against federal background check expansion efforts.

“The families were pushing for a bill that wouldn’t have done anything,” Kane said of the 2012 tragedy, in which the assailant stole a legally purchased AR-15 before killing 26 people — most between the ages of 6 and 7 — in Newtown, Connecticut. “But they told us that the worst thing to happen would be nothing, so they agreed to a more moderate bill with broad public support.”

Kane and his colleague spoke to many of the senators who voted against the proposed assault weapons bill or the more modest background-check legislation.​

Having covered Congress since 2000, the last eight years as The Post's senior congressional correspondent, he didn’t expect any to recant their decision. To his surprise, each did, some occasionally breaking down in tears.

“It was almost a form of therapy,” Kane said. “They saw it as a stain on their record.”

Meanwhile, Frankel, an enterprise reporter on the Financial Desk, anchored a reporting team that researched how the AR-15 became the best-selling gun in America.

“This is a gun that the industry was initially suspicious of,” he said. “They didn’t know how to sell a military weapon, but when they saw they could make a lot of money, they changed their tune.”

Frankel also explored the 1994 bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, both of which expired in 2004.

“Right or wrong, we wanted to highlight the decisions made and the repercussions that followed,” he said.

This goal — to question, comprehend and inform — was instilled in both Pulitzer Prize winners as Blue Hen students.

Kane recalls stumbling into a journalism course and quickly finding his passion. During his junior year, then-Senator (and fellow alumnus) Joe Biden gave a talk in Smith Hall, where a young Kane asked the first legislative question of his career.

“I loved UD,” he said. “I continue to talk to students as much as possible.”

Frankel has also remained connected to campus, speaking to a journalism class just a week before winning the Pulitzer.

He credits longtime journalism professor Kevin Kerrane with opening his eyes to “ambitious, big-picture stories.”

Kerrane had asked his class to read “Three Little Words,” a 29-part series in The St. Petersburg Times about a man with AIDS. Enthralled, a young Frankel went to a Main Street coffee shop and devoured the narrative in one sitting. When the newspaper later held a town hall on the story, the UD student flew to Florida to “see it up close.”

“I knew then that he was bound to be a journalist,” said Kerrane, adding that Frankel missed a class test in pursuit of the story. “It’s illustrative of somebody who gets a thread and keeps following it.”

More recently, the professor remembers hearing Frankel on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, shortly after The Washington Post series published: “I was reminded, once again, of how much I respect Todd’s work.”​

Article by Artika Casini 

Photos courtesy of Todd Frankel and Paul Kane 

June 28, 2024