I was glad to see this well-deserved plaudit for my old colleague Doug Pardue:
For the past few months, the SC American Association of University Women in collaboration with other interested groups have mounted a campaign to get a domestic violence bill passed through the house and senate for the governor to sign this year.
SC American Association is proud to honor Douglas Pardue for his award winning series of articles that has raised awareness throughout our state on the seriousness of domestic violence in the Post and Courier, “Till Death Do Us Part”. The Pullitzer prize recognizes the quality of the reporting and we want to commend meaningfulness of this work for our state.
We are donating a $500 gift to AAUW Funds in his name. The money will be used to fund graduate fellowships for women.
We appreciate the work of Mr. Pardue and other reporters at the Post and Courier who write wrote about the disgraceful level of domestic violence in South Carolina. Over the past few years our State has become the spouse murder capital of the country.
We have high hopes that legislation will be passed that will reduce these appalling statistics. In fact our organization has circulated an action letter for several weeks yielding over 500 legislator-specific emails along with letters and postcards to reach every legislator. The domestic violence bills are stalled in SC legislature. We are continuing to encourage citizens for justice on the issue of domestic violence to write a letter to the editor and contact their legislator through an action letter:
http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/
50796/p/dia/action3/common/ public/?action_KEY=13498& killorg=True Since the study and series in the Post and Courier on domestic violence began last August, 18 women and 12 men have been murdered due to domestic violence.
We challenge Mr. Pardue to continue to report on this situation until the legislature responds to the people. If the legislature fails, we want you to publish the names of those who obstructed this effort!
I had the sense that, in the coverage of Charleston’s Pulitzer, Doug’s role was perhaps downplayed a bit. He was mentioned as one of those responsible, and listed first. But I suspected he led the effort that led to the prize, since that’s a role he has so often played — he used to be the investigative editor at The State. Doug is next-to-last on the left-hand side of the table (next to Mike Fitts) in this photo from after Lee Bandy’s funeral.
Maybe he didn’t play that key a role, but the AAUW seems to think so.
Way to go, Doug!
Related Posts
