The East Valley Tribune newspaper of Mesa, Arizona will close on December 31, just months after winning the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, The Associated Press reported yesterday.

The Tribune's parent company, Freedom Communications, made the decision following unacceptably low bids to buy the U.S. news outlet, according to Editor & Publisher.

The Tribune won its recent Pulitzer for a five-part series exposing how a local sheriff's focus on illegal immigration diverted police protection from the rest of the community, according to a Tribune article in April announcing the award. One of its authors was laid off last year.

Freedom Communications filed for bankruptcy on Saturday in a plan that seeks to reduce a debt load of US$770.6M by more than half, Reuters yesterday reported.

The Pulitzer Prize is an American honour conferred since 1917; journalists of any nationality may compete, so long as their entries appeared in a regularly-published U.S.-based newspaper, in print or online, according to the awards committee's Web site.