HOLLAND (WHTC) — A 23-year-old computer scientist from West Michigan can add “Pulitzer Prize” to his resume.
Just weeks into his new job as a Washington Post graphics editor last year, John Muyskens helped build a unique database on fatal police shootings in the U.S.
The Post’s database, with related news stories, won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
“I don’t think we would have won the prize with just the database, or just the stories,” he told WHTC. “But the combination of the two is what did it.”
The Grand Rapids native credits fellow Calvin College students for getting him into computers and editing Chimes, Calvin’s student newspaper.
Today he works with an estimated 70 journalists — led by Marty Baron, the executive editor best-known for the Boston Globe’s 2003 Pulitzer-winning investigation of the Catholic Church and pedophile priests. (The Globe’s investigation became the subject of film “Spotlight,” this year’s best-picture Oscar-winner.)
The Washington Post’s series on police shootings continues. (The Post won the 1999 Pulitzer for public service with a shorter series of stories on police training and officer-involved shootings.)
As for the database, Muyskens said, “There’s some really sad stories in there. There’s also stories where officers have saved the day. So you see the full range.”
Listen to John Muyskens’ full conversation with WHTC — in which he talks about discovering data journalism, what it’s like to work for Marty Baron, how the police-shooting stories have affected him and, going forward, what he hopes to learn from his Washington Post colleagues.
