Christmas comes in April every year for the newspaper industry, arriving the week the winners of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize are announced. "Winning the Pulitzer is every newspaper editor and publisher's dream," writes reporter Michael Pollick, covering his Florida newspaper's moment in the spotlight.
Even though only 14 news organizations can win, more than two dozen newspapers and journalists are nominated – a nomination, by itself, is something to celebrate – and reporters, photographers, editors and publishers all over the U.S. feel good about their profession, as champagne corks are popped and past Pulitzers counted in the winning newsrooms.
Repeat Winners Always Represented, but Everyone Has a Chance for a Pulitzer
Although the New York Times and the Washington Post are the undisputed heavy hitters in this annual contest, winning 23 Pulitzers between them throughout the past five years, anyone can win. Watching the prize go to journalists at smaller papers, unknown outside their own region, is part of the fun for industry observers. Anyone can share this fun too, reading about the winners and their work, at The Pulitzer Prizes website.
Or let the Poynter Institute, be your guide to the stories behind the story. Meet Mike Keefe, editorial cartoonist at the Denver Post, once a university instructor and doctoral candidate in math. Dean Singleton, the Post's publisher, praised Mike, noting "he's won every other major award in his field" but never the Pulitzer.
"I am gobsmacked," said Keefe. "In recent years the Pulitzer has gone to much younger folks who are newer in the business . . .I thought my day had passed."
Sarasota Herald-Tribune Enjoys a Pulitzer Debut
In Florida, Paige St. John is this year's great example of a first time winner at a regional paper, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. St. John's exhaustive, nearly two-year study of the property insurance system found that while Floridians pay higher and higher rates for disaster insurance, hundreds of thousands of them "entrust their financial security and that of their communities to a system that is on the edge of disaster itself."
St. John's work, what the paper describes as "a database-driven project," was published in eight sections and included graphics, video, and the Herald-Tribune's own web-based and mobile-based application allowing users to compare Florida's property insurers.
Neither St. John, nor the Herald-Tribune has basked in Pulitzer glory before, but Executive Editor Mike Connelly noted the paper has been a finalist three times in four years. "In difficult times, that reflects a sustained commitment to excellence."
Pulitzer Board Invites Online Material and Submissions from Online-Only News Outlets
The current economic crisis in the U.S. has been particularly hard for the newspaper industry. The problem of falling ad revenues, due in part to reduced consumer spending, has been compounded by falling circulation numbers due largely to the transition of news from a print product to a digital one. The Pulitzer Board has made changes over the past five years reflecting this transition.
The Board, in particular, has acknowledged the new reality that news papers are slowly but steadily becoming online news sites, as well. In 2006, the Pulitzer Prize Board invited newspapers to submit "a full array of online material – such as databases, interactive graphics, and streaming video."
Then for 2011, the board emphasized that entries may employ "any available journalistic tool, including text reporting, videos, databases, multimedia or interactive presentations" in any combination of those formats. In the years between 2006 and '11, the rules have been revised to make eligible, entries from "online-only news sites that publish at least weekly."
Pro Publica, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Show What Digital Journalism Can Do
Fittingly this year, Pro Publica, a digital startup launched in 2008, dedicated to investigative reporting, won the first Pulitzer ever for work that has appeared exclusively online – a series about the contributions some Wall Street bankers have made to the financial crisis. The number of Pulitzer entries from online-only news outlets has nearly doubled from last year, and Nieman Journalism Lab shows the details of this growth.
The award winners this year also include examples of newspaper-based work with strong digital components. As noted, the Florida insurance stories of Paige St. John offered this, as does an award winning series at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about genetic science and a medical mystery.
The Journal Sentinel entry relied on "graphics, photo galleries, video, audio and interactives", as well as two reporters' narratives to tell the story. Poynter's Al Tompkins wrote at length about this story. "It is no longer enough to tell a great story only in print," he summarized.
Still More About the Pulitzer Award
Looking for more about the Pulitzer Prize itself? Visit the FAQs page of the Pulitzer website which will answer most questions, including how "Pulitzer" is pronounced ("PULL it sir"). Be sure too, to visit the biography page of Joseph Pullitzer. From there, find links to the "history" and the "administration" of the prizes.
Kathlin F. Sickel - Reading and writing in print and online. So much to uncover and report. Join me; let's see what we can discover.
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