Sara Ganim and the newspaper staff broke the story in March 2011.
View full sizeJerry Sandusky is driven by authorities in December from Centre County Jail to his State College, Pa., home after spending the night in jail. This photo was taken by Sara Ganim of The Patriot-News, which won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the scandal.Sara Ganim and the staff of The Patriot-News' coverage of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal is winner of the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.
Today's announcement said Ganim and the paper won for "courageously revealing and adeptly covering the explosive Penn State sex scandal" involving Jerry Sandusky by breaking the news in March 2011 that a grand jury was investigating Sandusky. It was the first to report in November that prosecutors were filing child sexual abuse charges against him.
The paper followed those scoops with a series of reports about the allegations, including the stories of alleged victims and how the matter was handled by Penn State administrators.
Sandusky is confined to his home while awaiting a June trial on 52 criminal counts, allegations he has repeatedly denied.