The Bristol Herald Courier won the top prize for journalism— the Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service— for reporter Daniel Gilbert’s series on natural gas royalties. The paper’s managing editor, J. Todd Foster, was editor of the News Virginian in Waynesboro for four years before joining the Herald Courier in 2007.

While working as a contributor for People magazine, Foster also got the jump on the identity of Watergate’s “Deep Throat,” Mark Felt, in 2002, three years before Vanity Fair broke the story in 2005. Foster abandoned book and magazine projects with Felt’s family because, he says, of ethical and money matters.

This is not Foster’s first brush with a Pulitzer. In 1992, he was an investigative reporter for the Oregonian and part of a team that was a finalist for the prize for breaking news.