September 02, 2010 01:14 AM UTC

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Gazette Reporter Resigns

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• by: Colorado Pols

We were pleased last fall to note a new addition to the reporting team at the Colorado Springs Gazette: we knew about the work of Eileen Welsome from the 1990s during her time at the Albuquerque Tribune. Welsome won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on government radiation research on human subjects during the Cold War. As a reporter for the Gazette this year, Welsome was already showing great promise doggedly running down the story of Doug Bruce’s covert role in Amendments 60, 61 and Prop. 101–known colloquially as the “Dr. Evil” initiatives.

As most of you know, the Colorado Springs Gazette is party to a legal dispute with this blog, and we have been ordered not to quote any of their stories. But we of course do read the Gazette every day, and value the work of their reporters–as we do at newspapers across the state.

But we were surprised to hear today that Welsome has suddenly resigned from the Gazette. It has been suggested to us that there may be a political reason for her departure; we want to stress that we have no way of confirming that, but it comes from a reliable source. Given the quality of her work in her brief term at the Colorado Springs paper, this would be another big loss for political journalism in the state, at a time when that can least be afforded.