The Post received honours for coverage of topics including private security contractors in Iraq, a violin virtuoso’s incongruous (and mostly overlooked) performance in a Washington subway station, and US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s sub rosa exercise of executive power.

The only newspaper to have won more of the awards in a single year was The New York Times, which in 2002 took home seven Pulitzers, most of them for coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath.

With the newspaper industry obsessing over lost revenue and readers’ shift to the Internet, Post journalists saw the newspaper’s multiple prizes as confirmation of the continuing value of dogged reporting and artful writing. “Original reporting still matters,” Post staff writer and blogger Joel Achenbach wrote on the paper’s website on Monday. “It’s probably our best gimmick. It’s what we do (imperfectly to be sure) better than anyone else in the news business. It also can’t be easily replaced on the cheap by some other information-delivery system.”

Among the other winners were The New York Times—which took prizes for investigative reporting on foreign imports and for explanatory journalism about DNA—and Investor’s Business Daily. The financial paper, based near Marina del Rey, California, took its first Pulitzer for the editorial cartooning of Michael Ramirez.

The Post’s public service award came for its vivid accounts of the poor treatment suffered by wounded soldiers at what was supposed to be a premier medical facility. Reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull and photographer Michel du Cille depicted a hospital littered with mouse droppings, broken-down furniture and an inattentive staff. The stories provoked widespread outrage, leading Defense Secretary Robert M Gates to fire Army Secretary Francis J Harvey.

Senator Claire McCaskill of Montana recalled on Monday how the Post’s stories “turned my stomach”. She said the Post’s reporting gave a lot of “oomph” to stalled legislation to improve treatment for active-duty military and veterans.

The Post won the national reporting prize for its four-part series about how Cheney has wielded power and policy influence like no previous vice-president. Reporters Barton Gellman and Jo Becker spent a year and interviewed more than 200 people in their research on Cheney. Gellman said on Monday that the Cheney story was such a “tough nut to crack” that he had ducked it for some time and worried that months of reporting might lead to nothing. The investigative reporting prize was shared by The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune for stories that led to substantial policy changes. The Times story exposed how medicine and other imports from China included toxic ingredients. The Tribune investigation showed poor Government regulation of toys, car seats and cribs, and led to a recall of hazardous products.

Meanwhile, Junot Diaz has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, an ambitious, unconventional novel about a nerdy Dominican immigrant and his family that took him 11 years to complete. “It’s extraordinary how many people read a book that’s new and weird and befriend it,” a stunned Diaz said shortly after receiving the news.

The Pulitzer Board also gave a special citation to living legend Bob Dylan, the first rock musician to be so honoured.

2008 Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism

PUBLIC SERVICE: The Washington Post

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING: STEVE FAINARU, The Washington Post

NATIONAL REPORTING: JO BECKER and BARTON GELLMAN, The Washington Post

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING: WALT BOGDANICH and JAKE HOOKER, New York Times

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING: Chicago Tribune staff

FEATURE WRITING: GENE WEINGARTEN, Washington Post

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING: Washington Post

EXPLANATORY REPORTING: AMY HARMON, New York Times

LOCAL REPORTING: DAVID UMHOEFER, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

COMMENTARY: STEVE PEARLSTEIN, The Washington Post

CRITICISM: MARK FEENEY, The Boston Globe

EDITORIAL CARTOONING: MICHAEL RAMIREZ, Investor’s Business Daily

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY: ADREES LATIF, Reuters

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY: PRESTON GANNAWAY, Concord Monitor

2008 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music

HISTORY: DANIEL WALKER HOWE, What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848

BIOGRAPHY: JOHN MATTESON, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father

FICTION: JUNOT DIAZ, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

GENERAL NONFICTION: SAUL FRIEDLANDER, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945

DRAMA: TRACY LETTS, August: Osage County

POETRY: ROBERT HASS, Time and Materials; AND PHILIP SCHULTZ, Failure

MUSIC: DAVID LANG, The Little Match Girl Passion

SPECIAL CITATION: BOB DYLAN