“A Century of Excellence: The Pulitzer Prizes and Journalism’s Impact at UNT,” screams the front page of The Campus Chat, the student newspaper of the University of North Texas that has morphed into the North Texas Daily.

The Mayborn Graduate Institute of UNT, observed a proud moment September 29,2016, when five Pulitzer Prize Finalists and five Pulitzer Prize Winners, all former UNT students took the stage at the UNT Student Union Lyceum to display their tradition of respect that span 100 years, for the much-maligned profession that is journalism.

Telling how they have earned this distinction among all journalists, each panel member showed how writing and photography, when done well, right wrongs in society.

Leona Allen who graduated in 1986, worked for the Dallas Times Herald before joining the Akron Beacon Journal where she rose to the position of editor. She is currently the deputy managing editor at the Dallas Morning News. Her work on public housing and the discrimination against minorities in the housing market earned her this much-coveted prize for examining race relations and hidden biases.

“Writing about race relations create risks and challenges. People do not want to talk about it. What it takes to get people to open up, show that you care,” she said. She talked about how she paired with a white reporter to get into certain neighborhoods. The housing laws have since changed for the better.

Dan Malone over a period of two years, investigating what he titled “Abuses of Authority” documented in the Dallas Morning News, how Texas law enforcement officials habitually infringed upon the rights of citizens. “Texas has more cops investigated than any other in the country,” he told the audience. He twitched expressing a beating of a kid in a holding cell for something in his words, “not-so-glorious.”

David Klement’s Pulitzer is for his team-work at the Detroit Free Press where they told the story of the Detroit riots that unfolds even today due to lack of housing and jobs. He graduated from UNT in 1962 and had written about 11,000 editorials.

UNT Adjunct Professor Gayle Reaves’ 14-part series – “Violence against women: A question of Human Rights,” deservingly got her the gold, the Pulitzer. She worked at the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Weekly.

Senior Director of Media Content, UNT Health Science Center Kerry Gunnels collaborated with Gayle Reeves at the Dallas Morning News and shared the Pulitzer for violence against women in 1992.

Melissa Boughton, Eric Gay, Kalani Gordon, Ray Mosely and Kenneth “Chip” Somodevilla have all been finalists.Ray Mosely is a 1952 graduate at a time when UNT was Texas State College. For 59 years, he covered events around the world as an international journalist from Africa to South Asia and beyond.  A Pulitzer for the report on the Little Rock school integration crisis in 1957, at the Arkansas Gazette, was won. He contributed to the coverage.

These writers and photographers made the argument that people the world over, just desire to be free and equal under the law. “Regardless of how massive the story may be, the human element is what reaches out and touches people,” one said.