'40 Bodies In Freezer' Paper Wins Pulitzer

Sweetness & Light ^ | April 17, 2006 | N/A

[Sam Hill]

Yep, the "newspaper" which gave us so many drama queen stories about Katrina that turned out to be woefully inaccurate wins the top prize in US journalism.

Kind of tells you something, doesn't it?

From Saudi-owned Reuters [excerpted]:

Jim Amoss (L), Editor of the Times-Picayune newspaper, congratulates publisher Ashton Phelps, Jr. after learning the paper won two Pulitzer Prizes in New Orleans April 17, 2006. The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and The Sun Herald of Biloxi, Mississippi, shared the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for excellent coverage of Hurricane Katrina. The Times-Picayune also won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for its coverage of Katrina.

Storm-hit newspapers win Pulitzer 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and The Sun Herald of Biloxi, Mississippi, shared the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for excellent coverage of Hurricane Katrina even as their staff and offices were hard-hit by the devastating storm, it was announced on Monday.

The Pulitzer Prize, the top U.S. journalism award, went to the Times-Picayune "for its heroic, multifaceted coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, making exceptional use of the newspaper's resources to serve an inundated city," said the statement by the Pulitzer Prize Board.

The Times-Picayune also won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for its coverage of Katrina. The 90th annual prizes were announced at Columbia University.

The New Orleans newspaper's offices and plant were flooded, and many of its staffers were left homeless when the levees broke during the August 29 storm. Much of the staff was forced to evacuate the city...

But the important things is that the Times-Picayune managed to get so many of their lies into the public's conscious. And that is what the Pulitzer Committee is surely rewarding.

Behold just one example of the Times-Picayune's Pulitzer Prize winning reportage:

Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center

By Brian Thevenot
Staff writer

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.

"Don’t step in that blood - it’s contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he’s an old man."

Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man.

"That’s a kid," he said. "There’s another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."

He moved on, walking quickly through the darkness, pulling his camouflage shirt to his face to screen out the overwhelming odor.

"There’s an old woman," he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. "I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death," he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair.

Brooks and several other Guardsmen said they had seen between 30 and 40 more bodies in the Convention Center’s freezer. "It’s not on, but at least you can shut the door," said fellow Guardsman Phillip Thompson.

As even we here suspected at the time, it was all a lie. Like so many of their Katrina stories.

The front page of the Times-Picayune's September 2, 2005 edition.

But they did their masters' bidding, so they get the prize.

[MissEdie]

Think their new moto should be "News that's Fit to Invent", how about you?

[Gordongekko909]

Hey, hey, HEY! I will not sit by silently while you impugn the Times-Picayune! The Times has been wrapping seafood in New Orleans-area seafood markets for decades, and will continue to do so for years to come! Its paper has excllent tensile strength, and doesn't fall apart when it gets wet!

That, and the sports section is generally reliable!

[magslinger]

I must be gettin old..... I remember when winning a Pulitzer meant something.

Has the Pewlitzer been cheapened or is it that we know a lot more that the MSM don't want us to know because of the Internet?

[abb]

I'm reliably told that the TP's advertising revenue issue is "challenging" to use a quaint euphemism that was used earlier. They've got a long way to go to get back to profitability....

[Anti-Bubba182]

It is predictable that the Times-Picayune would get a Pulitzer
as an expression of sympathy masquerading as an award for excellence.

[sgtbono2002]

Giving the Pulitzer to these guys is a bit like giving the Academy Award to the Brokeback Mounting. It doesnt mean a thing any more , just political BS by those handing it out.

[Borges]

Except BM didn't get the Academy Award...

[sgtbono2002]

I guess that shows you how much I care. It was up for it wasnt it.?

Academy awards, Pulitzers, Nobel Peace prizes. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

[Grampa Dave]

I like your comment. So we can say the Pulitzer Prize is now the Brokeback Prize in creative fiction posing as news.

[OKIEDOC]

The Pulitzer Prize is nothing but a bunch of Main Stream Media liberals self congratulating left wing news organizations.

How can a media whore like the Jayson Blair New York Times win any kind of award when their reporting is mostly fake but accurate.

The Pulitzer may be big to some but it and $1.59 will get you a cup of coffee at Star Butts.

[Borges]

No it lost to Crash. Best Picture winners on the whole are far less offensive then you may think. The old fashioned films tend to win most of the time.

[xcamel]

Pulitzer ??

Putzer prize is more like it

[abb]

Here ya go, Dave. The trend is your friend...

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/tm.site/news/Earnings%20Estimate%20Change/223563/

[Txsleuth]

Looks like the Pulitzer has about as much credibility as the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Mike Darancette]

I think it was NOLA that was the good guy.

[Mo1]

They can win prizes ... but it won't make their subscriptions go up

Why .. because people are sick of the lies that are printed

[Sam Hill]

Here's another one from the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters of the T-P:

"In St. Bernard, 22 bodies were found lashed together. Officials surmised the drowning victims had tried to stay together to keep themselves from being washed away in the storm."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10167.htm

Never mind that this too was completely untrue:

Good journalists keep digging till they unearth the truth | TheNewsTribune.com | Tacoma, WA

"Immediately after the hurricane a story was widely published quoting St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens, who said 22 people had been found dead near Violet, La., lashed together by a single rope. In November a Knight Ridder reporter established that the claim was completely untrue."

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/columnists/zeeck/story/5445117p-4915990c.html

I never saw the Times-Picayune retract this lie either.

Instead it got plastered all over the media. Most people probably believe it was true.

[Sam Hill]

But imagine how burned Shemp Smith and this guy must feel:

[Txsleuth]

I gotta tell you....I saw Shep reporting about this...and he was almost as excited as he was while standing on the freeway screaming for help....pffffft

[Mo1]

Instead it got plastered all over the media. Most people probably believe it was true.

Katrina is up there with Iraq on the worse reporting ever