A Columbus native was part of a team at the Cincinnati Enquirer that won a Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper’s work looking at the opioid epidemic in the Cincinnati area.
Mariel Padilla, 23, worked as a breaking news intern at the Enquirer last summer, where she was responsible for going to the jail every morning and tracking the number of arrests due to opioids, which was then placed into a database for other reporters to use.
Padilla graduated from Columbus North High School in 2013 and contributed to the Enquirer’s “Seven Days of Heroin” coverage that looked at different angles of the opioid epidemic affecting the community. She is a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, from which she will graduate this month with a master’s degree in journalism.
Padilla said she was glad to have been able to contribute to the project, which helped her develop her reporting skills. “I’m glad a light was shed on this issue,” Padilla said.
She plans to work at Columbia University after graduation after being awarded a six-month fellowship.
