Ithaca Alum Wins Pulitzer Prize

Written by 6/1/2009Share this story on Facebook!

Mark Mahoney '85, editorial page editor of the Glen Falls (NY) “Post-Star” and 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner. Photo courtesy of the "Post-Star"

• Roy H. Park School of Communications

Mark Mahoney ’85 was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

The award recognizes the best reporting and publishing in a calendar year, and the winners typically come from the nation’s most well-known newspapers.

But who’s ever heard of Post-Star? With a circulation of only 34,000 the Post-Star of Glen Falls, New York, was by far the smallest paper among this year’s winners, but Mahoney’s reputation for tackling complicated, contentious issues with precision and humor helped him stand out against writers from the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.

• Mahoney's award-winning columns

Pulitzer Prize judges gave him the award for his “relentless, down-to-earth editorials on the perils of local government secrecy, effectively admonishing citizens to uphold their right to know.”

Mahoney graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communication management. While at Ithaca he was the news director of WICB, the campus radio station.