The newspaper industry seems to sag more and more by the day but there's still one day each year to remind journalists and the public of the great public good newspapers can serve. It's when the Pulitzer Prizes are announced.

Yesterday was an especially great day for The Washington Post, which was awarded six Pulitzers, a record for the paper, including one exposing the deplorable conditions returning Iraq War veterans were subjected to at Walter Reed hospital in the District of Columbia.

Broken by the Post, the story became a huge embarrassment for the Bush administration and for the U.S. military and the subject of numerous hearings before Congress.

The Post also won for national reporting for a series on Vice President Dick Cheney and the power he wields behind the scenes in Washington.

The New York Times won two Pulitzers, one for a timely investigative series by Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker on the use of toxic ingredients in goods imported from China. It was Bogdanich's third Pulitzer for investigative journalism, his second at the Times.

The Pulitzers are administered by the journalism school at Columbia University and are considered the most esteemed of all journalism awards.

Other winners included Investor’s Business Daily, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, along with Reuters, the news service.

Here's a complete list of the 2008 winners:

PUBLIC SERVICE
The Washington Post

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
The Washington Post Staff

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of The New York Times

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
The Chicago Tribune Staff

EXPLANATORY REPORTING
Amy Harmon of The New York Times

LOCAL REPORTING
David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

NATIONAL REPORTING
Jo Becker and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING
Steve Fainaru of The Washington Post

FEATURE WRITING
Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post

COMMENTARY
Steve Pearlstein of The Washington Post

CRITICISM
Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe

EDITORIAL WRITING
No Award

EDITORIAL CARTOONING
Michael Ramirez of Investor's Business Daily

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY
Adrees Latif of Reuters

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor

FICTION
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

DRAMA
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

HISTORY
What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)

BIOGRAPHY
Eden's Outcasts by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

POETRY
Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins)

POETRY
Failure by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

GENERAL NONFICTION
The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)

MUSIC
The Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang (G. Schirmer)

SPECIAL CITATION
Bob Dylan