Free Republic

With two Pulitzer Prizes to her name, Dana Priest is one of the Washington Post’s most celebrated reporters. Until Monday, when the Post published the first installment of a bombshell series on post-9/11 intelligence industrial complex, national security blogger William Arkin was hardly known to the paper’s readers. But from a media perspective, Arkin’s role as co-author of the series might be the more important. It marks the first time one of the Post’s bloggers – lately the cause of controversy because they sometimes blur opinion and reporting — has had a byline in one of the paper’s big, investigative...

Citing Israel's "apartheid state," Alice Walker, who wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Color of Purple' reaffirms support of BDS movement. Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, refused to authorize a Hebrew translation of her prize-winning work, citing what she called Israel’s “apartheid state.” In a June 9 letter to Yediot Books, Walker said she would not allow the publication of the book into Hebrew because “Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.” In her letter, posted Sunday by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of...

The Associated Press won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting Monday for documenting the New York Police Department's widespread spying on Muslims, while The Philadelphia Inquirer was honored in the public service category for its examination of violence in the city's schools. The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., won for local reporting for breaking the Penn State sexual abuse scandal that eventually brought down legendary football coach Joe Paterno. A second Pulitzer for investigative reporting went to The Seattle Times for a series about accidental methadone overdoses among patients with chronic pain. The AP's series of stories showed how New York...

Click the link to see the winners.

We’ve submitted last year’s blockbuster investigation for an award. Click here to review the entire series. Last year, PJ Media published an eleven-article series titled “Every Single One”, the result of a year-long investigation of — and legal battle with — the Department of Justice. Our correspondents — PJ Media Legal Editor J. Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky — discovered the Eric Holder DOJ had used an ideological litmus test when evaluating applicants for employment within the Civil Rights Division. The Civil Service Reform Act, a law dating to President Chester Arthur, prohibits federal hiring based on political...

I was duped. I once hired an illegal immigrant to be a reporter for the Chronicle. "I don't think I'm a criminal," Jose Antonio Vargas told me when we met last week, right before he announced his status to the world. "Don't make me seem guiltier than I am." Jose lied to me and everyone else he worked for, and that's not kosher, especially in a profession where facts and, more elusively, the truth are considered valuable commodities. In 2003 he wrote a story for us about illegals getting fake drivers' licenses in the Mission when he'd used phony documents...

I recall studying journalism in college when discussions came up about the notion of “yellow journalism” and how a man named Joseph Pulitzer was synonymous with the term. For those who might not be familiar with the term, it generally means the kind of journalism that is sensational, sometimes tacky, and aimed more at attracting readers and viewers than the kind of responsible journalism one might expect from a respectable newspaper or news organization. Think of yellow journalism as the kind of reporting we see today from most main-stream outlets: irresponsible reporting that exaggerates and downright lies, while not focusing...

David S. Broder, 81, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post and one of the most respected writers on national politics for four decades, died Wednesday in Arlington of complications from diabetes.

The announcement last night that the National Enquirer had won a Pulitzer Prize, America's most prestigious journalistic award, for its coverage of the Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards's extra-marital affair sent shockwaves through the media establishment. Actually, that paragraph is entirely inaccurate, a charge often levelled at National Enquirer stories. In fact, the panel of Pulitzer judges, co-ordinated through New York's Columbia Journalism School, steered clear of rewarding the tabloid and opted instead for more conventional outlets including the New York Times and the Philadelphia Daily News. The question of whether or not the Enquirer would take a Pulitzer...

Public Service: Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier. Breaking News Reporting: The Seattle Times staff. Investigative Reporting: Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman of the Philadelphia Daily News and Sheri Fink of ProPublica, in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine. Editorial Writing: Tod Robberson, Colleen McCain Nelson and William McKenzie of The Dallas Morning News Fiction: "Tinkers" by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press) Drama: "Next to Normal," music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey Commentary: Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post

The administrator of the Pulitzer Prize board said today that the National Enquirer is "ineligible" for the nation's top journalism prize, dashing the flamboyant tabloid's hopes of taking the award for breaking a story about John Edwards' mistress and love child. When Edwards confirmed Thursday that he fathered a daughter with the campaign's hired videographer Rielle Hunter, the Enquirer announced it would submit its reporting for the prize, calling its work "good, old-fashioned reporting." Besides forcing Edwards to finally admit paternity, the National Enquirer's revelations have also led to a federal investigation into whether Edwards' campaign broke any laws...

The executive editor of the National Enquirer says he plans to enter his paper's work on the John Edwards scandal for a Pulitzer Prize. Don't laugh. "It's clear we should be a contender for this," Barry Levine said by phone Thursday, hours after the former presidential candidate admitted what the newspaper had been reporting all along: that he is the father of Rielle Hunter's baby. "The National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, was able to publish this reporting." Although the staff never doubted its reports that Edwards had fathered a baby girl with his former campaign videographer, Levine said, "there is...

The diaries of a British reporter who risked his reputation to expose the horrors of Stalin's murderous famine in Ukraine were put on public display for the first time Friday. Welsh journalist Gareth Jones sneaked into Ukraine in March of 1933, at the height of a famine engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Millions of people starved to death between 1932 and 1933 as the Soviet secret police emptied the countryside of grain and livestock as part of a campaign to force peasants into collective farms.Jones' reporting was one of the first attempts to bring the disaster to the world's...

Author’s note: On May 24th, the start of the Memorial Day weekend, I sent the protest reproduced below to the Pulitzer Prize Committee. If Boycott NYT readers also find this award outrageous, the Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism is Nicholas Lemann (lemann@columbia.edu). The address: Columbia School of Journalism, 2950 Broadway, NY, NY 10027. My journalistic colleagues (and there really are some good ones though most are even older than me!) characterize the Pulitzer Committee as “stubborn as mules and dumber than rocks.” The reason: the committee never acknowledges a mistake or rescinds an award, no matter how egregious...

Retired military analysts are reacting with outrage that the Pulitzer committee awarded one of its prestigious prizes for a story discredited by an independent investigation, special correspondent Rowan Scarborough reports.

The New York Times won five Pulitzer Prizes yesterday, including one for uncovering the prostitution scandal that forced Eliot L. Spitzer (D) to resign as New York governor, while Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson captured the prize for commentary for his writing about the campaign that led to Barack Obama's election....

Click the link to read the winners.

Thanks to Bob Dylan, rock 'n' roll has finally broken through the Pulitzer wall. Dylan, the most acclaimed and influential songwriter of the past half century, who more than anyone brought rock from the streets to the lecture hall, received an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday, cited for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." It was the first time Pulitzer judges, who have long favored classical music, and, more recently, jazz, awarded an art form once dismissed as barbaric, even subversive. "I am in disbelief," Dylan fan and fellow...

Investor's Business Daily cartoonist and Senior Editor Michael Ramirez won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday, his second win of the nation's most prestigious journalism award and the newspaper's first in its 24-year history. Ramirez won the 2008 award for a "distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing and pictorial effect." In awarding Ramirez, the Pulitzer panel lauded his "provocative cartoons that rely on originality, humor and detailed artistry." We couldn't agree more. "Michael is in a league of his own and at the top of his game," said Wesley...

BREAKING NEWS: Washington Post wins 2008 Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of the mistreatment of veterans at Walter Reed hospital. Full story to follow shortly.

Excerpt =- Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak was one of two foreign reporters arrested in Zimbabwe, where he was covering the elections, the newspaper said Thursday. "We do not know where he is being held, or what, if any, charges have been made against him," the paper's executive editor, Bill Keller, said in a statement. "We are making every effort to ascertain his status, to assure that he is safe and being well treated, and to secure his prompt release." It described Bearak as "an experienced and respected professional who has reported from many places. He won...

<p>NEW YORK - Norman Mailer, the macho prince of American letters who for decades reigned as the country's literary conscience and provocateur with such books as "The Naked and the Dead," died Saturday, his literary executor said. He was 84.</p>

Having Won a Pulitzer for Exposing Data Mining, Times Now Eager to Do Its Own Data Mining by Keach Hagey May 1st, 2007 Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits. The news didn't make everyone all googly-eyed. In fact, some people at the paper's annual stockholders meeting in the New Amsterdam Theatre exchanged confused...

In 1932, one of the most prestigious honors in journalism, the Pulitzer Prize, was awarded to Walter Duranty, a New York Times reporter who was then serving as foreign correspondent in the Soviet Union. Though many other Pulitzers have been handed out over the years, Duranty's is remembered more than most. In the on-line archive of the prizes (www.pulitzer.org), his award is noted in a bland, one-sentence explanation that reads simply: "For his series of dispatches on Russia, especially the working out of the Five Year Plan." The reference is to Duranty's reporting on Stalin's economic plan. Duranty's dispatches helped...

SAN FRANCISCO — David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who chronicled the Vietnam War generation, civil rights and the world of sports, was killed in a car crash Monday, his wife and local authorities said. He was 73. Halberstam, of New York, was a passenger in a car that was broadsided by another vehicle in Menlo Park, south of San Francisco, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said. The cause of death appeared to be internal injuries, he said. The accident occurred around 10:30 a.m., and Halberstam was declared dead at the scene, Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said....

It didn't take long for the Pulitzer Prize finalist lists to begin leaking out. Within hours of the 14 Pulitzer juries packing up to go home on Wednesday after three days of judging at Columbia University, the names of this year's alleged finalists began to spread. So far, E&P has compiled a likely list of nine of the 14 journalism finalist groups. These are compiled from multiple sources -- based on chats with some judges and editors at some newspapers that received firm word -- with at least two confirming their accuracy. E&P has been publishing these leaked lists for...

Jahangir Razmi Wins Recognition For Pulitzer Photo By EMILY STEELDecember 8, 2006; Page B3 More than a quarter of a century after an anonymous photograph of an Iranian firing squad won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, the Pulitzer Prize Board has said it will award the certificate and $10,000 cash prize to Iranian photographer Jahangir Razmi.The board said it will revise its records to grant Mr. Razmi his prize and invite him to the awards ceremony in New York May 21 at Columbia University, whose journalism school hosts the prizes. (Read the board's statement.)The identity of Mr. Razmi was...

Considering a lot of the reporting we've seen in the last few years from the MSM I think it's time that we inaugurate an annual Walter Duranty Award for Accuracy & Integrity in Journalism to an individual and MSM outlet that best exemplifies the high standards set by Walter Duranty and his reporting on Stalin's Soviet Union and the paper that carried his articles and proudly still displays his Pulitzer Prize. Any nominations? Reference the story they wrote/produced.

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist David Horsey compares Bush supporters to hicks. I have a word of advice for David Horsey: Mr. Horsey, you are a cartoonist. You get paid to draw cartoons that may be funny to some people, and sometimes may even be insightful, but will always be just cartoons. Your cartoons will never free the oppressed. Your cartoons will never cure cancer. Your cartoons will never save a human life. While America's finest men and women put their lives on the line every day for your freedom, you sit in your nice safe office and chuckle at your...

CHICAGO -- A Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune was charged in a Sudanese court Saturday with espionage and other crimes. Paul Salopek, 44, was charged in a 40-minute hearing with espionage, passing information illegally and writing "false news," the Tribune reported on its Web site. His driver and interpreter, both Chadian nationals, faced the same charges. ---snip--- "He had no agenda other than to fairly and accurately report on the region," Johns said. ---snip---

Here Are Pulitzer Prize Winners, Announced Monday By Joe Strupp Published: April 17, 2006 3:05 PM ET NEW YORK The New York Times and The Washington Post were the top winners as this year’s Pulitzer Prizes for journalism were announced at Columbia University shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Monday afternoon. In an unusual event, there were two winners in two categories, including the coveted Public Service slot -- shared by the Times-Picayune in New Orleans and the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. The Post won four prizes and the Times won three. The Times-Picayune had not been named one...

http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5740

In a National Public Radio interview just days after the Washington Post published her Pulitzer Prize winning article on the CIA’s "secret prisons," Dana Priest predicted that her work would cause "political embarrassment" for the Bush administration. Her prediction was not clairvoyance-based. The Washington Post released the article at a point of maximum impact—the eve of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s crucial visit to America’s European allies in the War on Terror. Priest’s shocking claims did more than embarrass the administration; they harmed America’s national security and intelligence gathering capabilities during a time of war. The allegations and insinuations of...

I came across an article written a few weeks ago and was even more amazed than usual at how little truth the piece contained. The title is ominous -- Iraq Quagmire, Domestic Troubles Have Bush Setting Sites on Iran -- and the writer, John Hanchette, has credentials out the yin-yang. John Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years....

Update: In 2002 the WaPo called the International detention (prison) story vital - in 2005 they quote another official calling it a burden. In 2002 they informed people that Clinton initiated the practice of extraordinary rendition. In 2005, they made it look like a creation of George Bush. What changed?

WASHINGTON, April 25 — The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday defended the firing of Mary O. McCarthy, the veteran officer who was dismissed last week, and challenged her lawyer's statements that Ms. McCarthy never provided classified information to the news media. But intelligence officials would not say whether they believed that Ms. McCarthy had been a source for a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles in The Washington Post about secret C.I.A. detention centers abroad. Media accounts have linked Ms. McCarthy's firing to the articles, but the C.I.A. has never explicitly drawn such a connection (snip) A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise...

Of Pulitzers and treason By Pat Buchanan Apr 25, 2006 Mary McCarthy, special assistant to President Clinton and senior director of intelligence in his White House, has been fired by the CIA. McCarthy allegedly told The Washington Post our NATO allies were secretly letting the CIA operate bases on their soil for the interrogation of terror suspects. Apparently, McCarthy failed several polygraph tests, after which she confessed. If true, she was faithless to her oath, betrayed the trust of her country, damaged America's ties to foreign intelligence agencies and governments, and broke the law. The Justice Department is investigating whether...

Fired CIA intelligence analyst Mary McCarthy has reportedly confessed to leaking facts about the CIA's top-secret terrorist jails in Europe and Southwest Asia to Dana Priest of the Washington Post. As Priest basks in the glory of the Pulitzer Prize she won for those stories, McCarthy is alternately being investigated for criminal prosecution and hailed as a brave crusader for truth, justice and The American Way. McCarthy is not, as one pundit said, a courageous American citizen exercising her First Amendment rights against an outrageous government policy. If there are no restrictions enforced by law, then there are no secrets....

It appears that one of the main sources of Washington Post reporter Dana Priest’s dubious November 2, 2005, story about CIA “secret prisons” abroad was CIA officer and former Clinton official Mary O. McCarthy, whose firing by the agency because of her leaks to Priest and other journalists has been making headlines. She had been hired by Rand Beers of the Clinton National Security Council, who went on to serve as an adviser to the 2004 presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry. Mary O. McCarthy, identified as a “U.S. Government/analyst,” is listed in Federal Election Commission records as a financial...

No evidence of a story? Interesting that this lady who just won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting about illegal CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and now the story doesn't hold water. (But even if the US were interrogating Al Qaeda in Europe, I don't actually see what the big deal is) Nonetheless, maybe the Pulitzers should only go to the real stories from now on.

The Rocky Mountain News was honored Monday with Pulitzer Prizes in writing and photography for its unflinching look at the way U.S. Marines honor comrades who have paid the ultimate price. In a newsroom celebration marked by emotion and tears, reporter Jim Sheeler was recognized for winning in feature writing and photographer Todd Heisler in feature photography for their collaboration, "Final Salute." The special report followed a Marine major who has the difficult task of making death notifications and of helping families begin to face life after loss. And while there was tremendous satisfaction in the awards, there was also...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times has suspended the blog of a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who posed as an Internet reader to defend his own column and attack his conservative foes. The Times apparently learned of Michael Hiltzik's multiple identities from another blogger, Patrick Frey, who was slammed by the columnist under a pseudonym. Frey, author of a blog called Patterico's Pontifications (www.patterico.com), traced the writer back to Hiltzik's computer. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060421/wr_nm/media_latimes_dc_3

The Pulitzer Prizes were just awarded, and once again, I was left off the winners list. Why? Why would the Pulitzer committee knowingly choose to undermine my self-esteem? As I wring my hands and wrack my obviously inferior brain, the answer hits me like a bolt out of a blue state. I didn't win, get nominated or even noticed because I didn't meet their very rigid criteria for selection. As simple and telling as that. And what exactly is the litmus test a writer has to pass before the Pulitzer committee deems his or her work acceptable? Well, as near...

The Pulitzer awards reflect discontent (Of course discontent with President Bush means that it is okay to give Pulitzer Prizes to a newspaper which lied about the NSA non story while breaking National Security Laws.) Commentary: By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Apr 19, 2006 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Many awards presentations are accused of being out of touch with the public or even appearing to be popularity contests. But I contend that many of the Pulitzer Prizes, handed out on Monday, accurately reflected the nation's growing discontent with President Bush. In particular, the awards presented to...

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...

“Starting off a week’s worth of “in-depth” reporting on global warming, “World News Tonight” falsely presented a liberal journalist and author as a Pulitzer Prize winner. “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan blames a 15-year misinformation campaign by the oil and coal industry” for the public’s lack of alarm over climate change, ABC’s Geoff Morrell told viewers of his network’s March 26 evening newscast. “The point of this campaign was not necessarily to persuade the public that global warming wasn't happening. It was to persuade the public that there is this state of confusion,” Gelbspan told ABC News. But it was...

Former NY Times Reporter: '93 Pulitzer Should Be Revoked By Sherrie Gossett CNSNews.com Staff Writer March 22, 2006 Washington (CNSNews.com) - Castigating the press for "journalistic crimes" committed during its reporting on the Balkans wars of the 1990s, retired New York Times reporter David Binder claims the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting awarded to both the Times and New York's Newsday "should, in all fairness and honesty, be revoked." Binder was speaking at a press conference for the release of a new book criticizing the war reporting. Binder wrote the foreword to the book by Peter Brock, titled "Media...

The story did not simply specify that there were unprotected areas of the body perceptively protected by existing body armor, but it highlighted those areas in both content and a color graphic, which illustrated in red exactly where bullets and shrapnel had previously struck and killed Marines. Certainly, any terrorist training camp where the bad guys are learning how best to kill American soldiers could make use of such a graphic.

Globalization guru Tom Friedman called Lou Dobbs, "a blithering idiot" in a lecture at Yale Law School last week... Friedman, three time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of bestsellers "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" and more recently "The World is Flat" (which sold a million and a half copies, far more than Dobbs' viewership), begins his answer. "One of the problems", he begins, explaining that we need leaders who can explain the complexity, not who will just stir the pot, "is we have politicians that are making us stupid, who are throwing sand in our eyes." But then he...

Can't you just imagine that this happened? Lawyer: "Tookie, it looks bad. The case against you is airtight! Whether you admit it, or not! BUT, there is a way we can keep you from the gas chamber!" Tookie: "Wha'? How, man?" L: "Simple, man. We rehabilitate you!" T: "Re-hab-bili-wha' me?" L: "Rehabilitate! We get you to write a book. A childen's book--yeah, THAT's the TICKET! A widdle-iddy-biddy children's book!" T: " Wri' a book? Man, I can't write no book!" L: "Hey, that didn't stop Al Franken, did it?" T: "Who'll buy the book, man...?" L: "The same ones who...