I’d like to congratulate my friend, Alan Butterfield, for his hard work and tenacity while gather the facts of the John Edwards’ affair.  His superlative investigative work and reporting were instrumental in the National Enquirer earning the recognition of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

From the time I first met Alan, it was clear to me that the stories he reported were honest, fair, but most of truthful.  When sharing my own storing, he went to great lengths to ensure its accuracy.  It comes as no surprise that his reporting on the John Edwards’ story would earn him and the National Enquirer the respect of the Pulitzer world.  After all, he and his contemporaries aren’t afraid to report stories that others wouldn’t dare touch.

From ABC News:

The National Enquirer is now legit, according to the Pulitzer Prize Board.

The body behind journalism’s most prestigious award conceded Thursday that the self-proclaimed tabloid can compete with mainstream news outlets for its prizes. Because it broke the story about former presidential candidate John Edwards’s mistress and love child, the Enquirer’s staff is eligible for the Pulitzer in two categories: “Investigative Reporting” and “National News Reporting.”

“We’ll see what happens,” National Enquirer executive editor Barry Levine said today. “We want to see now that the Pulitzer people review our submission and we expect, obviously, that there’s going to be tremendous competition in the investigative category and in the national reporting category.”

To detractors who contend the supermarket tabloid isn’t worthy of commendation, Levine said, the proof is in his paper’s reporting.

“The fact that we may package this story along with the types of stories involving celebrities that are not typical of newspapers that the Pulitzer committee may look at on a yearly basis has nothing to do with the reporting,” he said. “That persistence, that old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting that we exhibited on this story, at the end of the day, is what the Pulitzer committee recognized.”

_____________