El Paso Shooting

Recipient of the STAR BREAKING NEWS REPORT OF THE YEAR award in The Charles E. Green Awards (2019)

Staff Writers
El Paso Times

Walmart employees comfort one other after a shooter opened fire at the Walmart at Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso. Mark Lambie/El Paso Times

Judge’s Comments:

It was one of the biggest global stories of 2019, but in El Paso, it was a community tragedy that claimed neighbors, friends and relatives and shook this town to its soul.

With speed, clarity and grace, the staff of the El Paso Times brought the story of the Cielo Vista Walmart massacre to the world – and it is an honor to select this work as the Texas Headliners Foundation’s Breaking News Report of the Year.

Times staffers were on the scene – and providing information and visual updates online and on social media – within minutes of reports of an active shooter. Over the next hours, the Times put out topnotch journalism that helped keep outsiders informed while providing the type of local, public service reporting the community so desperately needed; a sidebar listing the names and phone numbers of area funeral homes is but one example.

The work of photographers Mark Lambie and Briana Sanchez deserves special recognition. Their images brought the horror, heartbreak, and, yes, heroism of that day to all of us, everywhere. In a piece published later, Sanchez noted that photojournalists “don’t get to choose the history we tell.” Indeed. But she, and the rest of the Times staff, recorded this day in history with great aptitude and, more so, with great humanity.

Pauline Arrillaga
Professor of Practice, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Former U.S. Enterprise Editor, The Associated Press

Judge’s Bio:
Arrillaga is a professor of practice and director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Southwest Health Reporting Initiative at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Arrillaga leads a team of students who focus on providing in-depth health care coverage on underserved communities across the Southwest. Prior to joining Cronkite in 2019, Arrillaga served as the U.S. enterprise editor for The Associated Press. Her work helped shape coverage examining the effects of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies on children and families. That coverage was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting and was a winner of an RFK Journalism Award and also the John Seigenthaler Prize for Courage in Reporting. She oversaw the AP’s series last year on missing and murdered Native American women, winner of the Dori J. Maynard Award for Justice in Journalism, the Les Payne Award for Coverage on Communities of Color, and other honors.

Arrillaga began her career in Dallas as an intern for the AP. She later covered state politics in Austin, the space program and prison system in Houston, served as a desk supervisor in Dallas, and was the company’s correspondent on the Texas-Mexico border, writing about immigration and the growing influence of Hispanics in America. She later was named Southwest regional writer based in Phoenix, and she was promoted to the coveted role of national writer in 2002, specializing in long-form narratives and covering major news events from presidential elections to the attack on Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Her stories have captured numerous accolades, Including a 2005 Livingston Award for “Doors to Death,” an investigative series examining human smuggling across the border. As both a writer and editor, Arrillaga has long focused on issues affecting Latinos and Native Americans and has reported from Native American communities across the West.

To see the prize-winning coverage from the El Paso Times for its coverage of the El Paso shooting, select from the links below.

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