New Sacramento Bee columnist wins Pulitzer for columns on former Kansas cop accused of rape
Columnist Melinda Henneberger, who joined The Sacramento Bee this week from McClatchy’s sister news publication The Kansas City Star, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her high-impact opinion journalism centered on a retired Kansas City, Kansas Police Department detective accused of rape and a culture of corruption and cover-ups in the criminal justice system.
Pulitzer jurors recognized Henneberger on Monday, “for columns demanding justice for alleged victims of a retired police detective accused of being a sexual predator.”
Henneberger earned the award for seven opinion and commentary pieces she penned in 2021 about Roger Golubski.
Henneberger interviewed numerous women who said they were raped by Golubski, who is now the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into allegations that he used his badge to exploit and rape vulnerable Black women for years.
Allegations against the former detective, who retired in 2010, surfaced in 2017 when Lamonte McIntyre was freed from prison, exonerated after a wrongful conviction in 1994 for a double-murder he did not commit. McIntyre in a lawsuit alleges Golubski framed him.
“I’m so overwhelmed I really don’t know what to say except that this is extremely humbling and, as I may have mentioned a few hundred times before, that it’s past time for the FBI to show up with some handcuffs,” Henneberger said. “If this brings some measure of justice to Roger Golubski’s victims at long last, then that will be the best award.”
Alvie Lindsay, who joined The Bee newsroom earlier this year as California Investigative Editor, was also lauded as editor of the finalist entry for The Indianapolis Star’s series on Indiana’s “red-flag” gun laws.
Indianapolis Star reporters Tony Cook, Johnny Magdaleno and Michelle Pemberton were nominated in the category of local reporting.
Kansas City Star editor Mike Fannin called Henneberger a “rare talent.”
“She not only brings the skills of an investigative reporter, but also a deep compassion for the subjects she writes about,” Fannin said. “Over the last five years, she has proven she’s one of the very best columnists in the country.”
Henneberger has written about a culture of silence at the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department and prosecutors’ handling of Golubski with intense scrutiny since the allegations first emerged.
She was honored as a Pulitzer finalist each of the previous three years, nominated twice for commentary and once for editorial writing, before Monday’s win.
“If I had not reported the story myself, I’m not sure I would believe that this could go on and on without any reckoning,” Henneberger said. “Yet even after all of the victims who have come forward at this point, at great personal risk, that has yet to occur. So I’m profoundly grateful for this honor, and so hoping that good comes of it.
The headline of her first 2021 story about the detective queried: “Why is Roger Golubski, an accused rapist and former KCK cop, still walking around free?”
“Melinda Henneberger is both an inspiring colleague and an incomparable journalist,” said Colleen McCain Nelson, executive editor of The Sacramento Bee and former editorial page editor at The Kansas City Star who hired Henneberger in 2017. “She is passionate about this work and relentless in her pursuit of truth and justice.”
“Her columns about Roger Golubski gave a voice to those whose stories had never been told, revealing that a corrupt police detective had been accused of assaulting dozens of women while the criminal justice system turned a blind eye. Her work has changed Kansas City for the better, and we are thrilled to celebrate this well-deserved honor with Melinda and welcome her to The Sacramento Bee.”
Prior to joining The Kansas City Star and Sacramento Bee, Henneberger worked for the Dallas Morning News, New York Newsday, The Washington Post and for 10 years at The New York Times.
“Melinda understands the crucial role that deep reporting plays in impactful opinion journalism,” said Kristin Roberts, Chief Content Officer at McClatchy, the parent company of The Kansas City Star and Sacramento Bee. “She is a clear and powerful writer whose work tells the stories of people ignored or forgotten – and in doing so she delivers on the highest mission of journalism: Service to our community.”
McClatchy’s opinion editor, Peter St. Onge, said he is “thrilled,” calling Henneberger’s columns “deeply reported and powerfully told.”
Another McClatchy news organization, The Miami Herald, won a Pulitzer prize on Monday for its breaking news coverage of the Surfside condominium collapse.
“As a newsroom, we poured our hearts into the breaking news and the ongoing daily coverage, and subsequent investigative coverage, of the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse story,” the Herald’s executive editor, Monica Richardson, wrote in a statement. “It was our story to tell because the people and the families in Surfside who were impacted by this unthinkable tragedy are a part of our community.”
This story was originally published May 9, 2022 at 12:17 PM.
