Bill Buzenberg, head of the Center for Public Integrity, joined HuffPost Live Wednesday to defend his organization against claims made by ABC News that CPI hadn't properly credited two ABC reporters for a Pulitzer-prize winning report on medical benefits for coal miners.
ABC News sent a four-page letter to CPI Tuesday asking that they extend credit to two of their reporters for the 25,000-word investigation conducted by CPI reporter Chris Hamby, but broadcast in video form on ABC. Buzenberg held firm that ABC didn't deserve any credit for the Pulitzer prize.
"I will say that I don't take well to being bullied by anybody or threatened by anybody," Buzenberg told host Ahmed Shihab-Eldin. "We just stuck to the facts. Everything we put out is just factual, one after the other. We're saying how we did this, what we did, and so far the Pulitzer administration has basically said 'yup, you did the preponderance of the work, you deserve the prize.'
"I think we'll just stop there. And I can't tell you what the motives of ABC are," he continued. "I think Brian Ross and Matt Moss -- the whole producing team -- they're fantastic journalists and I give them great credit for the work they did. It just doesn't happen to fit the rules of the Pulitzer, and therefore the Pulitzer correctly awards this prize to a young 28-year-old reporter who works for the Center Of Public Integrity."
Watch the full HuffPost Live interview with Bill Buzenberg here.
Disclosure: Arianna Huffington, HuffPost's editor-in-chief, is on the board of CPI.