The Aiken Standard's sister paper the Charleston Post and Courier on Monday was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper's series on domestic violence. Both papers are owned by Evening Post Industries.
The Public Service gold medal went to reporters Doug Pardue, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes and Natalie Caula Hauff for the series "Till Death Do Us Part."
The prize was announced Monday afternoon at Columbia University in New York City.
"It took a lot of folks to make this happen," the newspaper's executive editor, Mitch Pugh, said Monday afternoon in the newsroom. "Everybody in here should be very, very proud."
The Post and Courier's reporting team began work on the series in September 2013 when the Violence Police Center in Washington, D.C., ranked South Carolina No. 1 in the nation in the rate of women killed by men. The team compiled a database of those killed in domestic violence and examined the legal, political, cultural and economic factors that have contributed to the problem.
The California-based Center for Investigative Reporting's then-Editorial Director Mark Katches consulted on and helped edit the series, while the center's Senior Editor for Data Journalism Jennifer LaFleur provided database training. CIR also provided funding for data research and print graphics.