Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist to speak Thursday

A football injury in middle school led to a Pulitzer Prize winning journalism career for college summer workshop participant.

Joe Ruiz, associate producer for news at the Seattle Times website, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News, will deliver the 33rd Edith Fox King journalism Lecture AT 9:30 A.M. Thursday in Room 101 of Longwith Radio, Television and Film Building.

The lecture, sponsored by the journalism program and the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, honors an award winner and enriches journalism students' education. The event is free and open to the public.

Ruiz did not always plan to be a journalist.

The native San Antonian's first passion was sports, but he started to learn about journalism after he injured his knee playing football in middle school.

"It was dangerous for my knee to continue playing," he said. "To stay close to sports, I joined the middle school paper."

That early decision ultimately led to his participating in the Urban Journalism Workshop at San Antonio College in 1997 and free-lance sports writing for the San Antonio Express-News. He also spent two years as website news editor for KSAT-TV before joining the Seattle Times.

Ruiz will discuss his experience in various media in journalism, the skills needed in today's industry and his role in covering the 2009 shooting and death of four Lakewood, Wash., police officers and the two-day manhunt for the shooter, Maurice Clemmons.

Ruiz, who graduated from Holmes High School, did a two-year internship at KSAT through the school's Independent Student Mentorship program.

He started editing small scripts, then progressed into writing them.

"By the time I left, I was editing video and producing full-on news scripts," he said.

Ruiz's high school journalism teacher also recommended him for the Urban Journalism Workshop.

"When they said it was a boot camp for journalists, they were not kidding," he said.

It was the first time Ruiz tried photography, and his photo on school dress codes ran on Page 1 of the workshop newspaper, You S.A.

"It's basically hands-on," he said. "It's so important to go out and get your hands dirty because you can't learn this in a book."

While at the workshop, Ruiz decided to continue studying journalism at Texas State University-San Marcos.

He recommends a combination of basic journalism skills and technical skills. He lists his most useful skills as broadcasting, video/script editing, website managing and editing, and writing.

"People don't have to be programmers, but they need to have news judgment," he said. "You have to know how to express what you want to a programmer and to familiarize yourself with the tools around you."

Ruiz's primary job is coding, editing video and keeping SeattleTimes.com updated.

"We have daily meetings and have to figure out which news stories are more interesting then the others," Ruiz said.

This led to his involvement in covering the 2009 Lakewood shootings of four police officers.

On the morning of Nov. 29, 2009, Maurice Clemmons, who was in a white pickup, spotted four police officers at a coffee shop and fatally shot the officers.

Six officers had been shot in Seattle in the span of 10 weeks, he said. Including the four officers.

Ruiz said everyone's goal on the paper was to find out what happened.

"No one was thinking of rewards. We wanted to get the information out," he said.

Ruiz said the staff was on the story for more than 60 hours.

"We all depended on each other," he said.

"When the adrenaline wears off, you realize these are four cops who were shot when they were just chilling in a coffee shop," he said.

The Seattle Times was the first to break the story that in 1999 while Clemmons was serving a life sentence in Arkansas for aggravated and armed robbery, he was granted clemency from then-Gov. Mike Huckabee after serving 10 years of his sentence.

"These were stories other journalists could find, but our journalists took the time to research and find what they were looking for," he said.

On the morning of Dec. 1, 2009, the day Clemmons was caught, Ruiz came into the office at 3 a.m.

The story did not end there. It lead to the team also covering the largest funeral procession in Washington.

"I was emotionally drained, but I couldn't even imagine what these families were going through," he said.

Ruiz said while the story may eventually end, these are life-changing situations these families will never forget.

Like newspapers across the nation, The Seattle Times staff learned of their Pulitzer award through the Associated Press wire at 3 p.m. EDT April 12.

"It didn't hit me for a couple days," Ruiz said. "Not a lot of people can say they are a part of this team."

Ruiz said he hope students get out of his remarks at the Edith Fox King journalism lecture that this profession has a purpose to inform the community.

"If journalism fails, the world is worse off because who would put people in check," he said. "There is a nobility behind it."

The lecture honors the late Edith Fox King, who taught journalism at this college and advised The Ranger from 1958-1968.

The Lakewood killings coverage of the Seattle Times can be accessed at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/. For more information on the Pulitzer Prize access http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/2010.

For more information, call the department of media communications at 486-1773.