Kentucky's Governor Told Newspaper It'd Win a Pulitzer For Looking Into His Pardons, Guess What Happened Next

The Louisville Courier-Journal was among the Pulitzer Prize winners announced Monday for the newspaper's reporting on former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin's pardons issued during his last week in office. The complete list of 2019 honorees can be found here. For yet another year, The Big Lead is conspicuously absent, suggesting perhaps there's some work to be done on the journalism front.

Reporter Joe Sonka, among those who worked on the coverage, revealed that, in an amazing "what are you going to do, stab me" twist of fate, Bevin told him back in December that there was a Pulitzer to be won looking into the controversial pardons.

When Bevin called me in December he urged me to dig into the cases of his pardons, saying, "if it's done, right, I'm telling you, you could win a Pulitzer Prize.... I don't know if you write well enough or do research well enough to do it, but if somebody had that ability..."
— Joe Sonka ? #StayHome (@joesonka) May 4, 2020

Say what you want about politicians, they are a savvy lot. One has to figure this will be the last time they make a mistake like this. The new move will be telling reporters there is a Pulitzer pot of gold at the end of a rainbow topic that's nothing more than a wild goose chase. I am pro-media and it brings me no pleasure in reporting this.