Big congrats to the Seattle Times. It's the paper's eighth Pulitzer. And perhaps an extra meaningful one—it comes at a time of diminished resources and a smaller newsroom.

From the Seattle Times' web page :

The Seattle Times has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for its coverage of the shooting deaths of four Lakewood Police officers and the 40-hour manhunt for the suspect, Maurice Clemmons. The award, shared by the newspaper staff, is the eighth Pulitzer Prize won by The Seattle Times, and the first since the paper won two in 1997.

The Nov. 29, 2009, murders of Sgt. Mark Renninger and officers Tina Griswold, Greg Richards and Ronald Owens were the worst incident of violence against law enforcement in state history, and the manhunt that followed was the largest fugitive search in state history. The Seattle Times covered the story with dozens of reporters, photographers, editors and online producers.

The newspaper was the first to release Clemmons' name and his pardon by Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. It continued to cover the arrests of family members charged with aiding his escape, and the controversy over his numerous conversations from Pierce County Jail in which he threatened to kill police officers.

Executive Editor Dave Boardman says the paper's joy for the honor is tempered by the tragic nature of the story.

At the time of the coverage, we definitely noted the Seattle Times heavy lifting, writing:

The Seattle Times, The PI.com, the TNT—owned it today. They flooded the zone, they were hep with Twitter, and they (the Seattle Times especially) were throwing all kinds of cool Google mapping technology at the manhunt coverage. In an era when traditional media is accused of being slow-footed, they’re coming up big on this big story.

In a first for online journalism, ProPublica won a Pulitzer, in conjunction with the New York Times, for investigative reporting.