The making of a prize-winner.

Ran into my old friend John Bersia in Seattle, and was mumbling something about his Pulitzer. Huh? Could The Orlando Sentinel, which won for editorial writing 12 years ago, have done it again so soon? Surely the dapper Floridian was pulling my leg.

Yet a crowd was gathering, and you know what? They were there not just for a free box lunch, but to hear how Orlando's John C. Bersia won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Here's how easy it was.

Bersia led an editorial page crusade against predatory lending to folks with meager incomes. Under lax Florida laws, companies were able to stick borrowers with interest and fees that totaled more than 20% per month. This lending free-for-all was victimizing hundreds of thousands of Floridians per year.

If this sounds like a standard editorial or two, it did start out that way, with two heavily researched editorials in January 1999.

But Sentinel editor L. John Haile, who had suggested the topic, invoked a mantra: Bigger, Better, Bolder.

So Bersia ended up digging into the mess and its remedies for more than a year.

"I was substantially cut free," he said. "There were times when I was away from the office for weeks." He dressed down, scruffed up, and hung out at outfits that provided high-cost loans against people's cars or next paychecks. He met victims and role-played as a prospective borrower.

Sentinel colleagues helped with the field work (as he lost his anonymity) and with research. But this remained an editorial board project, not a tag team with the newsroom.

Bersia gave the series punching power by ferreting out victims willing to have their names and photos appear in the paper. Bersia turned to third parties -- including homeless shelters, consumer groups, and credit-counseling agencies -- to find those rare victims willing to go public.

The plot thickened when the Florida legislature killed a bill that would have dramatically limited the charges for auto-tide lending. In response, Bersia crusaded for reform county-by-county -- eventually getting about half of the state's counties to cap interest on auto-title loans. (This year the state legislature finally capped interest on such loans at 30% a year.)

Bersia has written more than 110 separate editorials on predatory lending and its remedies -- and he's not done. For example, the editorial page is still seeking state legislation to crack down on payday-advance companies.

Asked if regular readers complained of overkill, Bersia said some did, but were greatly outnumbered by those cheering the crusade on.

When something gets in the craw of the Orlando opinion-slingers, led by editorial page editor Manning Pynn, they get blunt. Under the theme "Fleeced in Florida," Bersia called the problem "legalized loan-sharking" and called the lenders "predators."

He zeroed in on powerful lawmakers in Tallahassee and toted up the special-interest contributions that seemed to control their votes and their maneuvers. "At a certain point ... you have to hit them with a hammer," he said with a smile.

What motivated Bersia to research these ripoffs ad infinitum and to keep pounding away from every angle? He cited the compassion of his late father, Alfred Bersia, who often said: "Look out for the person who has the fewest defenses."

NCEW member Douglas Pike, an editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, learned the ropes at The Orlando Sentinel from L. John Haile and Pulitzer winner Jane Healy from 1982 to 1987.