Mr. Blackledge Verified

Brett Blackledge is an enterprise reporter for the Associated Press in Washington, D.C. [CR-LF][CR-LF]He was previously a reporter for the Birmingham News and covered government services and news. He was a panelist speaker at the 2004 annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors. He also has served as a surveyor for the Alabama Center for Open Government. He was previously a general assignment reporter for the paper. [CR-LF][CR-LF]Mr. Blackredge won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 in investigative reporting for his work exposing nepotism and corruption in Alabama's community college system. He called his story the "bread-and-butter stuff" of day-to-day reporting and said: "It's still good, but it's basic daily stuff, and that's the affirmation to me -- that this very regular basic work that so many of us do every day can be honored with an award like this."[CR-LF][CR-LF]He earned a journalism degree from Louisiana State University in 1986. He began his career with the Associated Press in New Orleans, and later worked for AP in Jackson, Miss., and Tulsa, Okla.[CR-LF][CR-LF]He worked for The Journal Newspapers in suburban Washington, D.C., covering crime, local government and the Maryland and Virginia legislatures. There he also wrote about national education issues for Education Daily, covering the White House, U.S. Congress and U.S. Department of Education. He left Washington for Alabama in 1993.

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