Jon Franklin and a Description of Recent Feature Writing Nominees

I copied this from the Pulitzer Prize site. It looks as if the winner and one of the two finalists would satisfy Jon Franklin's notion of finding the positive angle - though my god the subject matter sounds pretty grim. The third story just seems downright depressing, of the sort Franklin says nobody likes. Interestingly enough, it's the one I went to the trouble to read when it first appeared. Perhaps, I was curious about how one "falls from grace" - a term my religious background floats to my lips - and I was also ready to fill up with anger at yet another pro sport that allows its participants - indeed, encourages them - to do themselves damage so that the sport profits.

 Sometimes, it feels good to feel bad, right?


  Awarded to Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle (Wash.) weekly, for his haunting story of a woman who survived a brutal attack that took the life of her partner, using the woman’s brave courtroom testimony and the details of the crime to construct a moving narrative. 

 Finalists Also nominated as finalists in this category were: John Branch of The New York Times for his deeply reported story of Derek Boogaard, a professional hockey player valued for his brawling, whose tragic story shed light on a popular sport’s disturbing embrace of potentially brain-damaging violence; and Corinne Reilly of The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, for her inspiring stories that bring the reader side-by-side with the medical professionals seeking to save the lives of gravely injured American soldiers at a combat hospital in Afghanistan.