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Pulitzer SchmulitzerDoes anybody care about the most prestigious prize in journalism?

By Jack ShaferPosted Tuesday, April 17, 2007, at 10:25 AM ET

On Monday, the 2007 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded for outstanding performance in journalism. Winners included the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. In a 2004 Pressbox column reproduced below, Jack Shafer asked, who cares?

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Outside of a couple thousand journalists working at the top-tier newspapers that stand a chance of winning one, does anybody really care about the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism? I doubt that one newspaper reader in 10,000 could tell you a day after the Pulitzers are awarded who got the prize for explanatory reporting. In a perfect world, the prizes would be treated as footnotes rather than the stuff of headlines, yet they make many a front page the day after they're announced, especially in the winning newspapers.

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Mickey Kaus wondered if the Pulitzer is cursed. Fred Kaplan asked when the Pulitzer Prize in music will get it right. Previously, Jack Shafer questioned defenses of hyperbolic humorist Davis Sedaris and predicted an exodus at the Los Angeles Times.

But news they are not. If the Pulitzers were about journalistic merit and not industry peacockery, today's Page One hed and dek in the Washington Post, "The Post's Shadid Wins Pulitzer for Iraq Coverage; Los Angeles Times Takes Five Awards," would be reversed to read "Los Angeles Times Takes Five Pulitzers; the Post's Shadid Wins One for Iraq Coverage." As Alexander Cockburn theorized in a 1984 Wall Street Journal column, the Pulitzers are a kind of show business, a "self-validating ritual whereby journalists give each other prizes and then boast to the public about them."

The Pulitzer boasting started in a modest fashion. In 1917, the Pulitzers' first year, there were only three journalism categories—editorial writing, reporting, and public service. In 1922, editorial cartoons were added; in 1929, correspondence; and in 1942 the count swelled to eight when photography and telegraphic reporting (both national and international) joined the roster. In the late '60s, the Pulitzers expanded with the profligacy of the National Hockey League, growing to 10 by 1968, 11 by 1970, and finally settling at today's 14 categories.

As Cockburn observed, "If bankers gave themselves prizes ('the most reckless Third-World loan of the year') with the same abandon as journalists, you may be sure that the public ridicule would soon force them to conduct the proceedings in secret."

As a judge of other, lesser journalistic contests, I can tell you that it's a good thing the winners are chosen in private rather than under the scrutiny of C-SPAN's cameras. There's no real science or even fairness behind the picking of winners and losers, with the prizes handed out according to a formula composed of one part log-rolling, two parts merit, three parts "we owe him one," and four parts random distribution. That the Los Angeles Times brought home five Pulitzers to the New York Times' one this year doesn't mean it's five times the paper. It's a matter of the constellations aligning themselves perfectly in the Los Angeles Times' favor. If the paper gets shut out next year, nobody will accuse it of having lost its edge.

If journalism prizes are such a racket, why do I participate in them? To expose myself to worthy stories I might not have otherwise seen and to meet the other judges. And in those long-ago days that I edited publications, it was a good way to scout for talent. If memory isn't a liar, I believe I've entered myself in only one competition, and that was for a no-name prize that paid a nice sum (which I could have used) along with the requisite bowling trophy. (I lost.)