Globe reporter Cook wins Pulitzer Honored for work on stem cell issues

The Boston Globe's Gareth Cook won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism yesterday for his coverage of the scientific and ethical dimensions of stem cell research.

The Pulitzer board cited Cook's ''clarity and humanity" in his wide-ranging reporting on a subject that encompasses science, politics, and morality.

''I'm kind of in shock right now," Cook told his colleagues in the Globe newsroom yesterday afternoon. ''In many ways, doing these stories was exactly what I dreamed journalism would be."

Cook, 35, is a reporter on the Globe's Health and Science staff. He joined the paper, as New England editor, in 1999 and became a science reporter a year later.

The Globe's editor, Martin Baron, praised Cook's work, saying that it ''cut through the rhetoric and all the political posturing" on stem cell research. ''For many years now, we've come to rely on Gareth for what we consider to be the best science writing in America," Baron said.

The Pulitzers, which also honor achievements in letters and music, are journalism's most distinguished honor. Cook's prize was the Globe's 18th Pulitzer. Most recently, the paper won the Pulitzer for public service in 2003 for coverage of the priest sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church.

A Brandeis University professor, David Hackett Fischer, won in the history category for ''Washington's Crossing," a book about George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River and his leading the Continental Army to victory at the battle of Trenton. In a telephone interview, Fischer described his method as ''braided narrative."

''What we're looking for -- and I say we because it's more than my own work here -- is a third way in writing history that combines the narrative tension and events of the old political history with the sense of structure and process of the new social history," Fischer said.

The biggest winners in journalism yesterday were The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, which each won two Pulitzers.

The Journal's Amy Dockser Marcus won for beat reporting for her coverage of cancer survivors, and in criticism Joe Morgenstern was cited for his movie reviews.

The LA Times won the most prestigious Pulitzer Prize, for public service, for an investigative series on the shortcomings at a Los Angeles public hospital. The paper's Moscow bureau chief, Kim Murphy, won an international reporting prize for her Russian coverage.

This year the Pulitzer board chose to give a second prize in the international category. It went to Dele Olojede of Newsday, for his reporting from Rwanda.

The prize for breaking news went to The (Newark) Star-Ledger for its reporting on the resignation of New Jersey's governor, James McGreevey.

Nigel Jaquiss, of Willamette Week in Portland, Ore., won the investigative reporting award for his exposé of the sexual relationship that former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt had with a 14-year-old girl. The prize was a coup for the paper, an alternative weekly that has a circulation of less than 90,000.

In national reporting, the winner was Walt Bogdanich, of The New York Times, for his articles on the covering up of fatal accidents at rail crossings.

Chicago Tribune reporter Julia Keller won the Pulitzer for feature writing, for her re-creation of a deadly tornado.

The winner in commentary was Connie Schultz, a columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

The editorial writing prize went to Tom Philp of The Sacramento Bee, for a series of editorials on the possible reclamation of California's flooded Hetch Hetchy Valley.

In editorial cartooning, the winner was Nick Anderson of The Courier-Journal of Louisville.

There are two prizes in photography. Breaking news went to the Associated Press for its images of combat in Iraq. The feature prize went to the San Francisco Chronicle's Deanne Fitzmaurice, for her photo essay on an Iraqi boy recovering in a California hospital.

Winners in letters included Marilynne Robinson, for her novel ''Gilead." Robinson's novel had previously won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Runners-up in the fiction category were Boston University professor Ha Jin, for ''War Trash," and Ward Just, who lives on Martha's Vineyard, for ''An Unfinished Season."

John Patrick Shanley won in drama for ''Doubt, a Parable."

Winning in biography were Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan for ''De Kooning: An American Master." A runner-up in the category was Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt for his Shakespeare biography, ''Will in the World."

The winner in poetry was Ted Kooser, for ''Delights & Shadows."

Winning in general nonfiction was Steve Coll, for ''Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001."

Steven Stucky won the Pulitzer in music for his ''Second Concerto for Orchestra."

Each prize, except for public service, carries an award of $10,000. The public service winner receives a gold medal.