The Pulitzer Prize Surprises
The Pulitzer Prizes have been announced and, as usual, The New York Times and The Washington Post dominated, with many other traditional news organizations scoring highly as well. While those wins should be recognized and applauded, it is the wins and nominations by the less famous, non-traditional news operations that are most interesting.
(This year, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded a special citation to the journalists of Ukraine “for their courage, endurance, and commitment to truthful reporting during Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion of their country and his propaganda war in Russia.”)
The Washington Post took what is considered the ‘top prize’ for Public Service reporting and was a finalist in three other categories. Its Public Service award winner was the “compellingly told and vividly presented account of the assault on Washington on January 6, 2021.” The New York Times won three of the 15 news categories: for National news, International news and Criticism and was a finalist in five other categories.
One of the categories in which the New York Times was a Finalist (but not a Winner) may be one of the more striking unintended commentaries by the prize committee. It was in the category of Breaking News Photography. The committee praised the submission “for striking images, conducted at great personal risk, of the military coup in Myanmar.” Here’s the point: The personal risk was so great that we may never know who actually took the pictures because the submission is by “Anonymous, a freelance contributor.”
The two winners in this category were: Marcus Yam of the Los Angeles Times for his “raw and urgent images” of the U.S. leaving Afghanistan and four photographers with Getty Images for their “comprehensive and consistently riveting photos of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.” This was the only category with two winners. One might argue there should have been three.
What may be the most unusual Pulitzer Prize Winner was a little science magazine in New York. It’s unusual because it is such a little-known publication, and because it was on a technical subject and because it was the only non-mainstream, or alternative, media site to score a Win on its own.
The unusual winner Quanta Magazine scored its WIN in the category of Explanatory Reporting with its reporting led by Natalie Wolchover on “the complexities of building the James Webb Space Telescope designed to facilitate groundbreaking astronomical and cosmological research.” Wolchover learned of her win while sick in bed with Covid-19.
Two of the wins were the result of partnerships between traditional and what may be called non-traditional or alternative news operations. Such partnerships were also winners in previous years’ Pulitzer Prize announcements.
The Local Reporting Winner was a partnership between The Chicago Tribune and the Better Government Association for their “piercing examination of the city’s long history of failed building and fire-safety code enforcement.”
The other big partnership Win was by Futuro Media in the category of Audio Reporting for a podcast titled “Suave” produced with PRX (Public Radio Exchange) of Boston. It was described by the Putlizer Prize committee as “a brutally honest and immersive profile of a man reentering society after serving more than 30 years in prison.”
Two of the Finalists nominated for the Pulitzer were also partnerships. In both cases it was with ProPublica which describes itself as “Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest.”
In Local Reporting in partnership with The Palm Beach Post for an investigation into air quality during Florida’s sugar cane harvest season.
In Feature Writing in partnership with Meribah Knight of WPLN (an NPR station in Nashville) for their report on “Black children (who) were arrested for a crime that doesn’t exist.”
It should be noted that the Pulitzer Prizes are also awarded in seven other categories involving books, drama and music. Much of the focus has been on the news side of the equation, in part because Joseph Pulitzer himself was a journalist. He wrote that he created the prizes to encourage “the most disinterested and meritorious public service…. (with) clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in the right direction.”
Pulitzer obviously knew journalism would evolve and he provided a great deal of flexibility in the awarding process. It is doubtful though whether Pulitzer could have imagined there would be news publications like the various organizations cited in this year’s prize selection. There can be no doubt though that he would also agree that those so-called alternative news sites live up to the high standards he set more than a century ago.
