Western Oregon Journal

Issue date: 4/22/05 Section: Culture

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In the nearly 100-year history of the Pulitzer Prize, only a handful of winners have hailed from Oregon. Nigel Jaquiss has joined that elite class of journalists.

Jaquiss, 42, is a news reporter for Willamette Week, an independently owned alternative newspaper from Portland. Jaquiss was pitted against the likes of much larger daily newspapers like the New York Times, which the prize tends to be awarded to.

"I did not expect to win," Jaquiss said. "The news was shocking and exciting. It took a few days to sink in, but I think I finally believe it."

The Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting was awarded for Jaquiss and Willamette Week's work involving the former mayor of Portland and state governor Neil Goldschmidt. Jaquiss dove deep and chronicled, over a span of seven months, the then very popular and hardworking politician. They asserted that Goldschmidt's illicit affair with a then 14-year-old baby sitter was an abuse that stole the life of a promising young woman nearly 30 years ago. Jaquiss and WW worked not only with the victim, but also Goldschmidt's lawyers, bargaining to obtain an absolute truth prior to the work's publication. The political bombshell essentially dethroned the democrat who still held power as a member of several legislative boards. Jaquiss said it was an event that shook Oregon to its political core. "Look at where Goldschmidt was prior to publication: chairman of the state board of higher education; chairman of Oregon electric, the company established to acquire PGE; and unofficially, a top advisor to Gov. Kulongoski and companies such as Bechtel and Wayerhaeuser. If you look at all the political and business I think there is little doubt he was the most influential man in the state."

Jaquiss, a former English major and oil trader in New York, made a career change when he graduated from Columbia in 1997 and started working for Willamette Week in 1998. There was a driving force behind the award winner's articles.

"I think any good investigative story includes something of a quest for justice; the victim deserved justice and so did the former governor. Reporting the story was also a challenge; both a race against other publications to break the news and the necessity to overcome a series of hurdles--such as the lack of cooperation from the victim and her mother--to get the story," Jaquiss said.

The Pulitzer Prize began in 1917 and is named for the American journalist Joseph Pulitzer. This is American journalism's highest award and is distributed in a number of categories. Appropriately, the award is rooted in the search and exposure of unrighteous government. The honor is decided upon by a panel of jurors and is awarded in a quietly exclusive luncheon for the prizewinners every year in May.

Jaquiss remains humble in the plight, crediting a great supporting staff and editor willing to stick their necks out for the right story. When asked where he would keep the award, Jaquiss commented, "I haven't had that discussion yet. The two guys who own Willamette Week, editor Mark Zusman and publisher Richard Meeker, built this paper over the past couple of decades with a real commitment to hard news; they bet the paper on the Goldschmidt story and if they want to keep it in the office, I won't argue."

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