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Elian story, picture dominate Pulitzers
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THE story of Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who became the centre of an international custody battle, earned prestigious Pulitzer Prizes on Monday for the Miami newspaper that reported the drama and a photographer who captured it on film.
The Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters and Drama and Music are awarded annually at Columbia University in New York.
The staff of the Miami Herald won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for its coverage of the raid that led to the six-year-old Cuban child being reunited with his father.
The Pulitzer Board cited the newspaper ``for its balanced and gripping on-the-scene coverage of the predawn raid''.
Herald Managing Editor Mark Seibel said what made the story special was that it took place on the newspaper's home turf.
``Usually, you're parachuting into someone else's troubles,'' he said.
The Pulitzer for breaking news photography was awarded to Alan Diaz of the Associated Press for his picture of the armed agents who seized the boy from his Miami relatives' home in a dramatic predawn raid on April 22, 2000.
``I have no way of describing how I feel,'' Diaz told Reuters after winning the award. A freelance photographer at the time of the raid, Diaz was later hired as a staff member by the AP.
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