Richard Whitt was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Local Reporting in 1978, for his coverage in the Courier-Journal of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky. He is a native of Greencup County and a graduate of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism, he started his career as a reporter with the Middlesboro Daily News in 1970. He was an assistant state editor of the Waterloo Daily Courier (Iowa) and city editor and assistant managing editor of the Kingsport Times-News (Tennessee) before joining the Courier-Journal in 1977 as a Northern Kentucky Bureau reporter. Whitt later became special projects reporter and Capitol Bureau chief for the paper. In 1988 he won the Southern Journalism award from the Institute for Southern Studies for a series on vote fraud in Kentucky, he was also a Pulitzer finalist for public service. Whitt won the John Hancock Award in 1984 and named a Pulitzer finalist for a series on coal mine safety in Kentucky. He received the Champion Media award in 1983 for a series on the end of the anti-poverty program in Appalachia. He joined the Atlanta Journal & Constitution in 1989 as a reporter, responsible for covering state and local government issues.