Classmates and Colleagues Parallel Paths to a Shared Pulitzer

Rick Attig and Brent Walth

Brent Walth ’84 spent a lot of his time in the summer of 2000 interviewing people he would never be able to write a word about. As an investigative journalist for The Oregonian, Walth found that for every family who spoke to him about the abuses they’d experienced at the hands of the INS, there were six or seven more who wouldn’t agree to go on record with their story, even if their case was settled. Around that same time, Rick Attig ’83 was interviewing members of congress and learning that conflicts with the INS were among the most common complaints from constituents. As a member of The Oregonian’s editorial board, Attig also spoke with current and former INS employees in the process of developing the newspaper’s editorial viewpoint. “Liberty’s Heavy Hand,” the resulting series published in six parts in December 2000, was a devastating critique of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. And Walth and Attig — as part of The Oregonian team that created this series — were awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. However, the two rarely communicated about the issues directly because there were strict firewalls between reporters and the editorial board. “As reporters, we are never asked our opinions,” says Walth, “and we never give them.” Running on parallel paths is nothing new for these two. While both double-majored in political science and journalism, they were classmates only in the technical sense of the word. “I knew Rick more by reputation than by anything else,” says Walth. While on staff at the UO’s student newspaper, The Emerald, he and the other student journalists spent a lot of time wondering if they’d ever get “real jobs.” “But Rick was this mythical figure that was still in school and working for a newspaper,” he remembers. Attig’s work appeared in The Springfield News for another year after graduation. Over the next thirteen years, Attig ascended the ranks at The Bend Bulletin, completing his career with the paper as its executive editor. He joined The Oregonian’s editorial board as associate editor in February 1998. Walth had arrived at the paper four years earlier. He says that his political science background has been a huge influence on the positions he’s held as a reporter. “I loved following politics and knew I wanted to write about them.” After graduation, he exercised his passion for political reporting at The Daily Journal of Commerce and The Register-Guard. “When I was 23 and just starting out, I was covering the Oregon legislature.” During this time, Walth often recalled the influential lectures of a former political science professor, Harmon Zigler. “I learned a lot in his classes about political theory and how it actually plays out,” says Walth. “He talked about agenda setting and how the government can control what the media writes about. I would watch all the reporters go from press conference to press conference and I said, ‘I’m not sure I want to participate in this’.” At The Oregonian, Walth has held the positions of Washington D.C. correspondent, environmental reporter, and now senior reporter on the newspaper’s investigative team. Between the two of them, they have forty years of experience in Oregon newspapers. But it wasn’t until 1999 that their paths actually crossed. Investigative reporters at The Oregonian had discovered that a 15-year-old Chinese refugee was being held in a Portland juvenile jail, despite the fact that she’d been granted political asylum more than six weeks previous; a Chinese businesswoman at the airport was strip-searched; and the German wife of an U.S. citizen was deported, and separated from her infant daughter in the process. A larger story was beginning to unfold — and Walth wanted to get involved. With his knowledge of political science as a foundation, he felt he could delve deeply into the issues at hand. Attig, assigned to be the lead editorial writer on INS issues, also makes the connection between the work he does at the paper and the work he did in the political science department at the UO. “I spend my days at The Oregonian studying and writing about public policy issues, politics, and government,” he says. “The coursework I had at the UO was terrific preparation.” Attig wrote opinion pieces that demanded the dismissal of the local INS director, the release of documents pertaining to individual cases, and many changes in INS procedures and federal immigration laws. The INS took those actions. Since “Liberty’s Heavy Hand,” Walth and Attig have had the pleasure of watching reforms unfold as a result of their team’s efforts. “The whole tone and tenor of the Portland district has changed,” says Attig. “People have been released from jail, or won asylum, or have been reunited with their children, probably in part because of our calls for change.” The UO now counts nine Pulitzer Prize winners among its alumni.

1245 University of Oregon • Eugene, OR • 97403-1245 (541) 346.3950 • FAX (541) 346.3282 • alumnidev@cas.uoregon.edu Copyright © 2002 University of Oregon Updated June 20, 2002