Alum part of Santa Cruz team that won Pulitzer Prize for breaking news
Photojournalist’s images and video part of award-winning coverage of destructive Santa Cruz storms
On May 6, Kevin Painchaud (B.A., ’97) received a cryptic message from his boss, the managing editor of Lookout Santa Cruz, a digital-only news organization covering Santa Cruz County. She told him and the rest of the 10-person newsroom to assemble for a company meeting at 10 a.m. “Don’t worry — it’s good news,” she told him. No one had any clue what she was about to say.
The editorial team assembled via Zoom. That’s when Managing Editor Tamsin McMahon blurted out, “We won the Pulitzer!” There was stunned silence. She repeated herself, but this time with context: “We won the Pulitzer for our breaking news coverage of the Santa Cruz storms.” McMahon had submitted an application for the coveted journalism prize in secret, thus the dumbfounded reactions of her staff.
After watching the televised broadcast of the Pulitzer Prize announcement, it finally sunk in. Painchaud, the Lookout’s only photographer and videographer, was in tears. “For me, the years of insecurity and second-guessing my passion for photojournalism as a career suddenly brought validity to what I love to do more than anything else, which is to tell stories with my photos,” he said in a recorded speech posted to the Lookout Santa Cruz YouTube page.
A School of Cinema graduate, Painchaud drove from one flooding site to the next, capturing it all with his camera and posting it to the website and social media in real time.
Painchaud continues to be recognized for his coverage during that period. First it was the Pulitzer, and then on July 15 the California Newspaper Publishers Association awarded him the Photo of the Year award for an image he captured of a man assessing damage done to his dream beach home in Rio Del Mar.
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