Rebecca Spiess was a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. Her series of investigative editorials detailing the slow failure of homeless services provided by the city and its impact on the homeless population, co-written with Brandon McGinley, the page editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, led to the honor.
Spiess’s career in journalism began with writing for the Downtown Devil while she was still at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the ASU campus downtown.
“Downtown Devil was my first ever byline,” Speiss said. “I remember seeing my name underneath the work that I had done. I don’t even remember the topic, but as soon as I saw the community responding to it, I was completely 100 percent addicted to journalism.”
Accountability was the main focus of Spiess’s series of articles, which led to her being a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
“Downtown Devil was the place where I learned accountability: If you need something to exist, you will have to be the person to do it,” Spiess said. “I also learned what I was capable of, because yeah, ‘I’m the one who asked to do it, but look at what I can do’ was basically how ‘Downtown Devil’ made me feel.”
After graduating from ASU, Spiess went to Berlin on a Fulbright Grant and returned to the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. She worked in a homeless shelter during the pandemic and would later be able to use that experience when she started reporting on the collapse of the services that those people relied on.
“I was able to talk to more people who are homeless, understand their lives and sort of the constellation of other factors from housing affordability, to mental health treatment, that all kind of come together to create this crisis,” Spiess said.
What Spiess learned while working in the homeless shelter became invaluable to the collection of articles, such as understanding how some homeless people would react to speaking with a journalist and how journalistic ethics influenced her work.
“These are the first times that I’ve interviewed people where I wondered — you’re talking to someone who might be in a psychotic state, someone who might not be able to answer your questions, or who you might not feel comfortable interviewing,” Spiess said. “So there were also a lot of ethical decisions that I had to make, like, am I taking advantage of this person? Am I protecting this person the way that they need to be protected? That was one of the biggest considerations.”
Spiess recognizes the importance of humanity in journalism and how that impacted how she wrote her articles.
“It’s really easy to parachute in and then leave because it can be really uncomfortable to be around people who are actively in a state of psychosis, struggling with substance abuse, and I feel like that’s obviously a factor of empathy,” Spiess said. “You’re around the people who are going through some of the most difficult parts of their lives. But that doesn’t mean they’re not people. That doesn’t mean that your own uncomfortableness can ever override the importance of their stories.”
Spiess saw the impact of the stories on the community, as she received several emails from people who were moved by the stories and looking to help.
“I went to a local speaker series about homelessness held by the University of Pittsburgh, and I was just there to watch, but people independently cited the editorial board’s reporting. And so the fact that it had been able to be disseminated in the community, that it was impacting the way people were thinking about this issue or altering people to this issue, that was the most affirming sign that we were making good progress.” Spiess said.
The award encourages Spiess to keep working on stories that help protect the community and hold those in power accountable.
“I think this award really just affirmed that work, no matter where it comes from or how it is done, speaks for itself. I think what this affirms, too, is that if you put your skills to use and if it’s the work that’s pushing you — we never expected this outcome. We never did this work in order to win this award,” Spiess said. “I hope to do more of the same. I hope that we can hold the city accountable. This — a lot of this started when they closed a huge homeless shelter.”
