We never did get a satisfactory answer as to why magazines are conspicuously excluded from the Pulitzer prizes, although yesterday we received word on who’d won. Fiction, history, drama, poetry—musical composition, fer chrissake—are all Pulitzer categories, along with fourteen newspaper categories, but no room at the table for the glossies. What’s more, newspapers are actually free to nominate themselves for the ASME national magazine awards—the Chronicle of Higher Education managed nominations in both the Pulitzers and the Ellies this year.
One colleague reported to us that he’d asked Marlene Kahan about this—she directs the American Society of Magazine Editors. Given that Columbia University sponsors both awards, why not just fold the less pretigious NMEs into the Pulitzers? (Well, we in the magazine industry have certainly committed our fair share of sins—but, you know, glass houses!) Kahan reportedly had no idea.
But we’re not here to bellyache about awards and the politics of awards, we just wanted to note that the Star Tribune was nominated in one category—Jim Gehrz in feature photojournalism. More impressive, editor Anders Gyllenhaal was on the nominating board.
Of course, the biggest surprise in this year’s Pultizers was Willamette Week, the Portland, Oregon, alternative weekly that broke the sordid story of a beloved state legislator’s involvement with a fourteen-year-old girl, and the subsequent decades-long cover up. Today, the editor of the daily Oregonian congratulated the local upstart on its massive national scoop—this is a newsworthy development in itself, given the arrogance and complacency of Big Media Newspapers these days (as eloquently opined by Jack Shafer more than once).
On the face of it, the Plain People of America no doubt wonder why such an apparently pointless, salacious, and sensationalist scoop is worthy of the highest award in journalism in the nation. Here, we que the usual pre-prepared clips about “speaking truth to power,” “comforting the afflicted,” “if this prevents one future case of child abuse from happening, it’s worth it,” and so on. (Do we sound cynical? We only wish to admit that there is a not very noble, animal satisfaction that accompanies the journalistic “gotcha” moment. This tragic tale of corrupted power and child abuse translates directly into huge numbers in the circulation category—driven by the satisfaction of the morally righteous, but essentially depraved mob of single-issue buyers. We know, Willamette Week is a freebie, but the rubric is the same. If you think the Oregonian didn’t get a bump in sales by following the parade, you missed the note of earnestness in editor Peter Bhatia’s congratulations.)
But the real achievement—the whole, implied basis for the Pulitzer honors in the category of investigative news—is not so much reporting or composing an unpleasant story. It is a skill that actually preceeds all that: it is the power of private persuasion, which allowed Nigel Jaquiss to turn a gossip story into a news story by convincing key sources to speak on the record and offer real evidence. Thus a rumor that was undoubtedly circulating in the corridors of power for years rose to the level of real journalism, by meeting its professional and ethical standards.
It’s a fine achievement (we especially like the part about the Oregonian eating crow), but one that is leavened by a heavy dose of sadness for all the victims of this story. Despite appearances, we are a rational people that tends to believe that bringing a story out into the light is the first—and best—step toward justice and peace. We’re not always so sure about that.
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