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At first it was that simple text without context from someone that puzzled Michael Lindenberger that surprising day, but the unexpected message soon was reinforced by an excited call from his boss. He was working from home, as were several other co-workers, when the journalists learned they were Pulitzer Prize winners.

They scrambled back into the Houston Chronicle office to share in their victory, small-scale and COVID-era style, as the four 2022 winners for for 2021 pieces about voter suppression in Texas. The series, called “The Big Lie,” detailed tactics to restrict voting, rejected claims of widespread voter fraud and advocated for voting reforms.

The UofL alumnus, 51, called the achievement “super affirming.”

“It was fun not just to win myself but to see my team and others win,” Lindenberger said, adding that the work of the editorial board and other staff members also elevated that of the winning four. “It was a real team success.”

As deputy opinion editor, Lindenberger directs the day-to-day editorial operation and edited much of the submitted copy along with his boss. He also wrote some of the entries, including one installment that gave a nod to his home state under the headline “The Big Lie: What happens when a GOP state tells the truth about voter fraud? Ask Kentucky.”

Lindenberger already knew whom to ask in Kentucky, and his experience likely gave him an advantage in securing the high-level interviews. He figures he has interviewed nearly every Kentucky governor since Wallace Wilkinson in the early 1990s, so he was able to add Andy Beshear to the list that already included Beshear’s father and former Gov. Steve Beshear. And he also knew from his UofL days fellow student Michael Adams, the Kentucky secretary of state who worked with Beshear on a bipartisan approach to expanding voting options in the state during the pandemic.

“We try to do our own research and our own reporting when we can, and I think that makes a difference,” he said about the Chronicle’s editorial operation.

Louisville readers may recall Lindenberger’s byline from the Courier Journal, where he served as a bureau chief, and LEO, for which he was chief political writer, or before that, from the Louisville Cardinal student newspaper, where he wrote and served two terms as its top editor in the mid-1990s.

“The Cardinal was fantastic training for journalists like me,” he said. The staff grew and the paper sent reporters throughout the country to report on some stories. Lindenberger recalled that lessons he learned while working there – “leadership, management and just journalism” – helped shape his career. “It was a truly great time.”

Then-Cardinal adviser Bob Schulman later became a good friend and served as an important mentor, teaching about fairness, the connection of the press to a community and the role of the press in a free society, Lindenberger recalled.

“All that was extraordinarily useful,” he said.

He also credited several faculty members, in particular, Charles Breslin, Paul Weber and Phil Laemmle, as meaningful influences.

The student wrote some UofL Magazine stories then and did research for some historical markers on campus, including the one that shows the resting spot of the ashes of Louis Brandeis beneath the portico of the law school that is now named for the Supreme Court associate justice.

The Louisville native wrapped up his bachelor’s degree in political science in 2003, having returned home after a reporting stint at the Dallas Morning News.

“I was deeply interested in the law,” he said. So he kept going, working on his law degree at night while writing for the Courier Journal. Lindenberger decided to finish it up full time, ultimately in 2006, after the newspaper closed some bureaus and made him rethink and expand his career options.

Although he interviewed with some law firms as he was winding up his second degree, he felt the pull back to his newsroom roots.

“My heart was still in journalism,” he said.

Lindenberger returned to the Dallas Morning News in 2007 as a senior reporter, enjoyed the honor and “great experience” of a Knight journalism fellowship in 2012-13 at Stanford University and was promoted to a Washington, D.C., correspondent for the paper. He was recruited back to work in Dallas, this time on the editorial staff, all the while relying on his legal experience.

“The law degree did two things for me,” he said.

Starting with contract work while he was still in school, Lindenberger contributed to Time magazine and Time.com more than 100 articles for almost a decade “writing for a very international audience about legal affairs for one of the most prestigious publications in the country,” he said.

And when he returned to Dallas after UofL, he was covering areas he described as “very political and policy heavy,” particularly about transportation issues in high-growth areas of Texas. “These were hugely important stories.”

“I was equipped with a legal education that allowed me to not ever be intimidated by anybody,” Lindenberger said. “That context and that capacity proved extraordinarily important as I became more and more an investigative reporter.”

After his varied roles at the Dallas paper, the Houston Chronicle hired him for its opinion team four years ago.

“We definitely had a goal of doing the kind of work that the best of our peers do,” he said.

Lindenberger said the editorials in the Pulitzer-winning series showed that widespread voter fraud in Texas “just doesn’t exist,” despite claims, and that voter suppression tactics were not new, dating back to Jim Crow-era efforts to limit minority votes. One part of the series called for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to resign, and others were critical of the Texas Legislature.

“We really do believe… ��that the work we do changes lives. We change opinions and that changes lives because it changes conditions in the state,” Lindenberger said, adding that effort takes a long time.

“You don’t write one editorial and suddenly everyone starts taking climate change seriously. It’s time and time again. It’s honest recording or use of the facts – and writing that makes people care about it.”

And the good news of the Pulitzer arrived after some personal losses and challenges for Lindenberger and for colleagues during the pandemic.

“All that together, and then to realize that the work we did in spite of all that stuff, to know that the work we were able to accomplish was judged to be the best in the country that year was really, really gratifying,” he said.

Phillip��M.��Bailey��(’07)����as in disbelief when his former coworker texted him those words last May. He had to check the official��Twitter account for Pulitzer Prizes to prove��to himself��it was true.����

And it was.����

In May, the Courier Journal��received��the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for its��investigative��reporting��of more than 600 pardons and commutations that former Kentucky Governor��Matt Bevin issued during his final weeks in office.��Bailey worked on two of the stories that led to the Pulitzer, often cited as the highest achievement in journalism.

“To know that your individual work��contributed��to that win is an incredible feeling,” Bailey said. “Even��just��being a Pulitzer nominee is incredible, so it is truly an honor to be in this club of people, from Ida B. Wells to Kendrick Lamar.”����

Bailey��launched��his journalism career��at UofL,��writing op-eds for The Cardinal,��the university’s��student newspaper, as well as an��independent black student newspaper��on campus.��He was a��political��science major, Pan-African Studies minor,��McConnell Scholar,��Porter Scholar��and a self-described “rabble-rouser”��during his time��on campus.����

“UofL was my training ground for��coalition��politics and life,” Bailey said. “There were people from all walks of life and all��kinds of different��backgrounds��there. So,��I learned how to��come together and��make decisions when there were those who don’t always agree, whether it was through student government, writing op-eds, philanthropic work��or��protests.”��

Bailey remembers meeting��other��students who came to��UofL and noted the importance of��a diverse campus.��������

“You’re going to have to know how to deal with people who aren’t exactly like you��in life. Whether��you meet someone who is gender non-binary or a Christian conservative, it is so important for everyone to have encounters with different people, especially in a country as increasingly diverse as ours,” Bailey said. “UofL is��in��the major metropolitan city in the state, so you get that��diversity��there.��

“I also learned how important it is to give voices to all groups of��people,��so everyone’s best interests are represented, like having the student government president on the board of��trustees. That’s����hat UofL taught me.”����

Bailey, a��comic book fan,��sees a link between superheroes and journalists, which drives his passion��for��his career.��

“There are two ways��heroes define themselves and I think journalists do,��too. There’s the superman mantra –��to��protect the innocent��–��and��the Batman mantra –��to��punish the guilty,” Bailey said. “Journalism is the place where regular people are able to challenge those in power and hold institutions accountable in order to protect the innocent and punish��the��guilty.”��

Bailey��recently��began a new job as a national correspondent��for USA Today.��He’ll still be based in Louisville, but will be covering issues across the country. He’s grateful to be staying in the city that has so far helped him establish a successful career.��

“I’m proudest because I haven’t had to leave��Louisville. If you’re talented and do the work, the bag will come to you,” Bailey said.��“I don’t need to live in the suburbs or move to Atlanta or New York. You can be excellent right��here.”��

Woodward has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, first in 1973 for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein, and again in 2003 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Woodward will receive the medal during an Oct. 16 dinner and presentation at the Louisville Marriott Downtown, 280 W. Jefferson St. During the presentation, Woodward will have a conversation about his life and career with Howard Fineman, Louisville law graduate and journalist.

The dinner and presentation are 6 to 8:30 p.m. A cash bar will precede the dinner. Tickets are $100 per person and available through Oct. 9. After that date, tickets are $125.��

The Brandeis Medal is awarded to people whose lives reflect a commitment to individual liberty, concern for the disadvantaged and public service. The honor is given in tribute to Justice Louis D. Brandeis, a former U.S. Supreme Court justice from Louisville and the namesake of the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law.

Woodward is the author or co-author of 19 books, all of which have been national non-fiction bestsellers. Thirteen of those have been No. 1 national bestsellers. He has written books on nine of the most recent presidents, from Nixon to Trump. “Fear: Trump in the White House” (2018) was both a New York Times and international No. 1 bestseller. It broke the 94-year first-week sales record of its publisher, Simon & Schuster, and sold over two million copies its first three months in the U.S. alone.

Like all of the “Pittsburgh” plays,��“Fences”��explores the evolving��African-American��experience and race relations, among other universal themes. In it, the central character Troy Maxson is a former Negro League homerun king forced into retirement before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1946. A decade later, he struggles as a Pittsburgh garbage man – barely making ends meet. His youngest son, Cory, is a promising high school football star who bears the brunt of the demons that only Troy can see.

The play won every major prize when it debuted on Broadway in 1987, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and added to its award count during the 2010 Broadway revival starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis.��A film version of the acclaimed Broadway revival is set to air this December.

, director of , is directing the production. Kelly has acted in half of Wilson’s 10-play cycle in major regional theaters across the U.S. and will draw heavily from those experiences.

“I wanted to direct this play because I am moved by the complexity and dynamics of black family relationships in the 1950s,” he said. “During that time, choices certain people had to make were limited and sometimes may have seemed socially unacceptable.��People like Troy did what they had to do to feed their children and support a family. For example, Troy felt obligated to commit a robbery as a young man.”

Thrust Theatre is located on UofL’s Belknap Campus, 2314 S. Floyd St. All plays start at 8 p.m. with 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday matinees. More information is .��