UPDATE 3-Washington Post wins six Pulitzer Prizes

(Adds Washington Post and Reuters comment)

By Karen Brettell

NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - The Washington Post won six Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, including the prestigious Public Service award for its reporting on conditions of U.S. war veterans at America's flagship military hospital.

The Pulitzer Prize board said the Post won for "exposing the mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed hospital, evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials."

"It's the greatest honor," said Anne Hull, whose work with her colleagues Dana Priest and Michel du Cille won the Public Service prize for the newspaper, part of the Washington Post Co (WPO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) media group.

"We just couldn't let up if we wanted because the first story triggered an avalanche of outcry from wounded soldiers and their spouses and family and it was really them riding us that kept us following the story," she said.

The 92nd annual Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music were announced at Columbia University in New York City. The Public Service winner receives a gold medal, and winners in the remaining 20 categories receive $10,000.

The Washington Post also won breaking news reporting for its coverage of the deadly Virginia Tech college shooting rampage and national reporting for an exploration of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's influence on national policy.

The newspaper won for international reporting for a series on private security contractors in Iraq operating outside most of the laws governing U.S. forces, feature writing for a story on a world-class violinist who played in a subway station as an experiment and commentary for columns exploring America's "complex economic ills with masterful clarity."