Pulitzers still think prize-worthy journalism is newspaper-only
You’ve always had to have a “dead trees” edition of a newspaper to win a Pulitzer. If your news was distributed via the Web only, no prize for you. (”Brought down the government, you say? I’m sorry, we didn’t see it in newsprint.”) It was only as of 2006 that you could get a Pulitzer for your online work - and that was only if you were “attached” to a regular newspaper.
Well hand it to the Pulitzers for getting hip with the times. No - you still can’t win a prize for simply doing good journalism. But you can win one if your paper is now “Web-only.”
From the Pulitzer press release:
“While broadening the competition, the Board stressed that all entered material — whether online or in print — should come from United States newspapers or news organizations that publish at least weekly, that are “primarily dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories,” and that “adhere to the highest journalistic principles.”
“Consistent with its historic focus on daily and weekly newspapers, the Board will continue to exclude entries from printed magazines and broadcast media and their respective Web sites.”
Well, now I’m just confused. What if you used to be a printed magazine, but now you’re a news organization that “publishes at least weekly” online? Does Pulitzer go by what you used to be? For that matter, your blog could be “dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories” that used to be considered more “magazine”-style reporting. (We’re no longer limited by “magazines are weekly, newspapers are daily” thinking here. What’s Slate?)
PaidContent.org noted the humor of this line from the release:
“The Board will continue to monitor the impact of the Internet…”
Yes? How? By the shrinking number of entrants that can follow your rules?
The Pulitzer is sticking with its anti-broadcast history and not allowing entries from broadcast media Websites. Spiffy. But what does that mean? What if WXXX has a hyper-local site that’s all print and pictures? Further, as we have asked in the past “WHAT IS A BROADCAST SITE ANYWAY? THEY’RE ALL WEBSITES!” The audience does not care about your old medium.
It gets more confusing still:
“In addition to text stories, the competition will continue to allow a full range of online content, such as interactive graphics and video, in nearly all categories.”
So video’s cool. Unless it’s been on television? What if the newspaper does a video piece and it appears on its companion TV station? What if a citizen journalist captures the best video of the year and sells it to a newspaper and a TV station? Do they get the Pulitzer for breaking news?
Why, oh why, can’t the Pulitzers recognize the change has come? Joseph Pulitzer died in 1904. And, by the way, he didn’t say “give these awards to newspapers or inventions connected to newspapers, for those shall ever be the one true news medium.” Isn’t it at least possible that he would have seen TV and the Web and thought “Wow! That’s amazing! Let’s give out some awards for great work!” This is right up there with the “What Would Murrow Do?” thinking that is holding back TV journalists. Who cares? What are we going to do to save a dying business?
If the Pulitzers are going to continue to mean anything, they should stand for excellence in journalism, regardless of the medium. Prize snobbery doesn’t help advance the state of the industry, it only reinforces the notion that “Newspaper Good, Internet Inferior.”
Who is going to prize that kind of thinking?
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