CAREER CUES
What it ’ s like to share in a Pulitzer Prize as an intern
By Linda Shockley
Charles Minshew of the Orlando Sentinel at the College Media Advisers convention in Atlanta . He was on the panel Lessons from Orlando : Staying Sane and Staying Yourself While Reporting on Horror . Audio by Linda Shockley
T he Dow Jones News Fund alumni rank impressively among winners of journalism ’ s top prize , the Pulitzer , but few have the distinction in sharing in the honor as summer interns .
Alumni Charles Minshew and Vinnie Vella , 2012 digital media and copy editing interns at the Denver Post , earned
CHARLES MINSHEW that high mark . Vella works as a reporter at the Hartford Courant . Minshew is a multimedia artist at the Orlando Sentinel . I talked to him in October at the College Media Advisers Convention in Atlanta where he joined a panel on journalists covering traumatic events .
Minshew , though working professionally for four years , has extensive experience with gutwrenching stories . His Denver Post duties put him on the Aurora Theater mass murders in July just weeks after the devastating wildfires that swept Waldo Canyon in Colorado Springs in June . The Aurora Theater shooting coverage won the staff the 2013 Pulitzer
Prize for breaking news . The fire reportage was a finalist in the same category .
Minshew was touched to be acknowledged in the staff award . “ They reproduced these little Lucite plaques with the Pulitzer , and our names were printed on the back ,” he said . He keeps it on his desk in Orlando .
According to Linda Shapley , managing editor , the paper didn ’ t think twice about recognizing the interns ’ share in the prize because they are an integral part of the team .