The Pulitzer Prize is one of journalism's most prestigious awards and this year's

winners include some familiar names like the New York Times Associated Press and

the Washington Post. But it was also a big year for some small newsrooms, including some new

digital outlets with just a handful of reporters covering stories in their local communities.

Stephanie Sigh has our look.

Across the country, fewer and fewer Americans have access to high quality local news coverage.

Last year, an average of two and a half local papers closed up shop each week and today

more than half of US counties have either no local news source or only one

remaining outlet but new digital-only enterprises are increasingly

filling the gap. For more, we're joined by editors from two of this year's

Pulitzer winning community newsrooms. Ken Doctor is the CEO and founder of Lookout Santa Cruz in

California, which won for their breaking news coverage of devastating floods.

And Andrew Fan, Executive Director of the Invisible Institute in Chicago, which took home

two Pulitzer for reports related to race and policing.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining the News Hour and congratulations on this prestigious award. How did you do it?

Both of your newsrooms are small, digital-only outlets. You each have just a handful of employees. Ken, starting with you, your

outlet, look out Santa Cruz, less than five years old. What did it take and

what does this recognition mean to you and your colleagues? So it means the world to us.

So we are just almost three and a half years old just at this point.

We were ready for to cover these storms, but we didn't expect these storms.

This is January 2023, nine atmospheric storms rolled through Santa Cruz and

it was just horrendous road's closed and everything

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