2008 Woodie Awards
Pulitzer Prize winner to speak on exposing community college corruption
ByIssue date: 4/20/07 Section: News
Originally published: 4/19/07 at 6:31 PM CSTLast update: 4/26/07 at 11:53 AM CST
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Brett Blackledge won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for ongoing coverage that has led to the firing of the chancellor and the removal of relatives from the payroll and investigations of two college presidents.
Read Blackledge's works here.
In addition, the community college system's central office is dispatching investigative teams to some of the 26 colleges under its supervision, and a federal probe has led to a series of indictments, guilty pleas and three convictions so far, and several legislators have either resigned or been fired from their jobs. As a result of the public scrutiny, the governor has introduced legislation banning employment of legislators in community colleges.
"There's a lot more material to look at regarding legislators working in or working for different colleges," Blackledge said Thursday in a telephone interview.
His most recent coverage appeared Sunday, about one year and 50 stories after his initial reporting detailed problems at the Alabama Fire College, a technical school that trains firefighters.
Blackledge said the statewide two-year college system is vital to Alabama as a stepping stone to higher education and to meet the workforce demands of a burgeoning auto manufacturing industry with significant economic development issues.
The system has 8,000 employees and serves 300,000 students. It was begun in the 1960s by Gov. George Wallace to give poor people access to higher education in their communities, Blackledge said.
Many employees have come forward to help Blackledge understand hiring, payroll and other procedures and to pinpoint wrongdoing.
"I tell people that (usually) 30 percent of information is good," he said. "In this case, 70 percent was so good, there is far less to toss aside."
Blackledge, 43, a native of Baton Rouge, La., graduated from Louisiana State University in 1986. He has worked for the Associated Press; Journal Newspapers in suburban Washington, D.C.; the Mobile Register; and Education Daily covering the White House, U.S. Congress and the U.S. Department of Education.
He has been a general assignments and special projects reporter at the Birmingham News since 1998.
The Edith Fox King Lecture has been sponsored annually by the journalism-photography department since 1978 to honor King, who taught journalism at this college and advised The Ranger from 1958-1968.
The campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has been a co-sponsor since the chapter was formed in 1991.
This is the first academic year in which two lectures have been scheduled. Ted Jackson of the New Orleans Times-Picayune spoke Nov. 14 on the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The faculty of the journalism-photography department decided to return to scheduling the event on an evening in May to make it more accessible to the community. Awards for student publications and journalism students will be presented. For more information, call the department at 733-2870.
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