March 28, 2024 • 48 mins
It doesn't get much bigger than the Pulitzer Prize if you're a journalist. Or a novelist. Or really any kind of writer. They even give them to podcasts now. We're not holding our breath.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's well, no, Jerry's not here. Man talk
about habit. Ben's here. It's the reign of Ben still
and that makes this these days stuff you should know.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
That's right. The episode in which we talk about a
major reward.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Yeah, that's not a leg lamp, but the Pulitzer Prize.
It is a you know, it's an award with much
prestige attached. They will be giving out the next round
on May eighth, probably not too long after this episode
comes out, in twenty three different categories. At a ceremony
(00:50):
at Columbia University in.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
New York City, did you say Pulitzer? Pulitzer? What do
you say?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That's what I say now. I said Pulitzer for the
vast majority of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Though, Do you know which is right?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I think Pulitzer. Okay, yeah, we've been corrected enough times.
I think it is Pulitzer. You got it right?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
All right?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Good they are and we'll go over all the categories.
But what you should know about the Pulitzer Prize is
they are distinguished works of American works, Yeah, in a
variety of categories. And I don't think even until yesterday
I fully realized that it was such a strictly American award.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I didn't either, which is ironic because it was the brainchild.
It was founded by Joseph Pulitzer, who was a Hungarian immigrant. Yeah,
but loved America. Loved America so much he moved to
Missouri and didn't leave for a while.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
He was born into a wealthy family April tenth, eighteen
forty seven and was a real like ambitious dude. He
came over to fought to fight in the American Civil War.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
For the Union. Yeah that's something, and did, in fact
enlists for a year in the Lincoln Cavalry.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
But he became a newspaper publisher at the age of
twenty five, and by the time he was thirty one,
he was the owner of this Saint Louis Dispatch, like
a major paper.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yet no, the Dispatch is still around. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's amazing. I didn't see how he ended up in
New York, but eventually he made his way to New
York and with his experience running a paper, took over
the world. The New York World, which was just a
New York paper in eighteen eighty three when he started,
(02:39):
but under his tenure it became the first national newspaper
like the USA today of its time.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, and he was, like I said, he was a
tireless worker.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
But he also suffered from poor health for most of
his life. I'm not sure exactly what it was, because
I saw that noises were a big deal. So he
would like have like rooms that were just like vaults
basically so he could sit in silence. But this poor health,
and I think he had failing vision two. He eventually,
(03:09):
at the young age of forty three, technically retired as
editor in chief of the World, but still really maintained
a pretty tight control over that paper.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Right. So today we think of Joseph Pulleitzer, we associate
his name with distinguished works of journalism, like the Cream
of the Crop of journalism every year, and that it
turns out as largely by design, because Joseph Pulleitzer, at
the time he was alive and running the New York World,
(03:38):
was well known for being the essentially the guy who
helped create yellow journalism, using hyperbole, using sensationalism, like writing
front page stories about people's divorces, like just scandal tabloid
stuff like this guy helped establish tabloid journalism in the
(03:58):
United States, And it might not have been quite so
pronounced his brand of yellow journalism had he not had
a like a rival who actually, in like perfect star
Wars in fashion, was actually his protege protege turned rival,
a guy named William Randolph.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Hurst, that's right, And they had the New York American Journal.
American was the big paper for Hurst at the time,
and they were in a real sort of neck and
neck battle to sell newspapers there in New York and
really kind of went at it yellow journalism style.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so yellow journalism, it turns out, has to do.
We must have talked about it in our comics episode
or whatever there was. The Yellow Kid was a character
on the comic called Hogan's Alley and the World and
the Journal American both had versions of this cartoon, essentially
one ripped off the other. So this was known as
(04:56):
the competition between the Yellow Kids, which came to be
known as yellow journalism. Right, and they would just pull
out all the stops, And apparently this race to the
bottom is largely blamed for starting the Spanish American War
essentially or at least getting America behind the whole thing,
so there was like real repercussions to it. People's lives
(05:18):
would be ruined. And so the idea that Joseph Pulitzer's
name is associated with, like the greatness of journalism is
really one of the better cases of I guess whitewashing
your image over time.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, I mean, he did believe in great journalism. He
said at one point, my idea is to recognize that
journalism is or ought to be one of the great
and intellectual professions. And there's more to the quote, but
like he was, he had this idea that he revered
this journalism, maybe because he wasn't doing it. And in
(05:52):
eighteen ninety two he approached Columbia University president and said, hey,
how about we get a graduate school of journalism going
there isn't one in the whole world. They said, eh, no, thanks,
So Missouri, the Missouri University of Missouri School of Journalism
became the first one in nineteen oh eight. The Nobel
Prizes were launched in nineteen oh one, and right after that,
(06:16):
Joseph Pulleitzer said, well, why don't we have our own
awards for journalism. This is nineteen oh two. Two years later,
in nineteen oh four, in his will he said, hey, Columbia,
here's two hundred and fifty grand, which is about nine
million bucks today. Established these prizes, and Columbia had a
new president at the time, and they said this guy
(06:39):
named Nicholas Butler.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
He was like, yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I'll take that money, and I'll also take the two
million dollars that you're going to give us for that
graduate school that we now think is a good idea,
which is about seventy one million bucks today.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's right, So very wisely, Joseph Pullitzer, he helped establish
his legacy. He steered what his name would be remembered
for by creating the foremost prize for journalists. Right.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
He didn't live to see it though, right.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Uh No, I believe I don't know what year he died,
but it was before nineteen seventy nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yeah, he died in nineteen eleven, Okay, so he didn't
even I think the graduate school opened a year after that,
and then the Pulletzers didn't start until six years later.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Okay, So he probably died with his fingers crossed, and
it actually paid off because not only did he he
did two really smart things. Chuck. One, he created a
panel a board to oversee the Pulitzer Prizes, and he
very wisely said, you it's up to you guys to
(07:44):
let these prizes evolve with the times. Don't let them
just be stuck in like nineteen oh four type stuff, like,
we want them to just kind of grow and evolve,
and they have over time. That was very smart. And
then secondly, he tied them not just a journalist, but
to drama, to music, to fiction, poetry. And at the time,
(08:09):
the American arts were considered foreig inferior to Europe, but
they were still considered vastly superior to American journalism. So
by hitching the wagon of journalism to this more revered
and legitimate form of expression, he raised journalism as well
(08:29):
the profile of journalism, and it worked. I mean, it
was really sharp how we set all this up, because
it paid off in aces.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, I think music came after him because his initial
eight awards were four for journalism and then four book
and drama awards. Compared to the twenty three categories we
have today fifteen in journalism, five in books, one in drama,
one in music, and one for graduate fellowships in journalism.
(08:57):
And I say we take an early break, yeah, and
go over these categories.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Lately I've been learning some stuff about insomnia or alumnia.
How about the one on borderl disorder that are under order.
You've heard that one be more, but it was so
nice I learned this.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Why except everybody listen up, stop stop lead stop stop stop.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
So we're gonna go over all twenty three categories. Dave
helped us with this, So we'll just tell you a
little bit about him because there's so many and maybe
mentioned like some notable winners or maybe this past year's winner.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
This is going to be a four parter.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah. One thing you will notice is that.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
He was a populist guy, Joseph Pulitzer was very sort
of progressive populist. Even though he was a wealthy dude
from a wealthy family. He really wanted to identify with
a common person. And the winners, as you'll see, still
have a very sort of populous progressive bit to them.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yes, very much so to this day. And it's you know,
through Columbia university.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Still, so it's not You're not gonna see Alex Jones
winning a Pulitzer Prize, you.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Know, for one of many reasons such a shock.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So the first one, the big Daddy, as they call
it at Columbia, is the Public Service Award. This is
the only Pulitzer award that comes with an actual engraved medal. Right, yeah,
that's what they expect you to do when they hand
you the medals. Dave who helped us with us he
put it, it's like the MVP of Pulitzers. Yeah, this
(11:04):
is so if you win this one, usually it's for
an entire organization. Sometimes they'll they'll mention like the lead writer,
if it was basically the work of one person. But
usually it's like the New York Times newsroom, or the
Washington Post newsroom, or yea once in a while, the
Wall Street Journal's newsroom. Usually one of the big news
services organizations are the ones who win the Public Service Award.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
That's right, that's the big Daddy. So there's also the
Breaking News Reporting Award. Obviously, it's about breaking news and
it is for a story that quote as quickly as possible,
captures events accurately, as they occur and as time passes, eliminates,
provides contexts, and expands upon the initial coverage. One notable
(11:50):
winner was the Denver Post the year the Columbine massacre happened,
or the New Orleans Times pick a UNI for their
coverage of Katrina in two thousands, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, journalism, what journalism is supposed to be. They have
a special award for that.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, newsy journalism.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
There's also investigative reporting, which you don't really need to
spell out because sure you know it is what it is.
But for this year, the Wall Street Journal one, they
had a series of articles, and that's a recurring theme.
Very frequently the winners have had a series of articles
rather than just one big whopper of an article. Yeah,
(12:29):
and that's actually by design, as we'll see. But there
was a series of articles about the conflicts of interest
between people at fifty different federal agencies and the stocks
of the companies that they regulated, and how they used
that information to basically trade publicly. Like you remember our
COVID episode where we started shouting about how some of
(12:50):
the senators who were debriefed on COVID and then went
and sold stock should be locked up. Yeah, it was
about that basically.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
What is for explanatory reporting if it's like a really
complex topic that someone can break down in a in
a great way.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
One for local reporting. So yeah, that speaks for itself.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, and this is where it's much easier for a
smaller organization to shop. Yeah, sure, that's good. Else there's
also national reporting, again usually goes to the larger, the
larger organizations just because they cover more of the nation.
International reporting, same thing. And then feature writing, where you're
(13:36):
you're also kind of credited for bringing in style, like
making a like taking a topic and actually like making
it more readable in some ways. There's just some a
certain flare to it. It's like the TGI Fridays of Pulitzers.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah, I thought.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I'd get a bigger reaction out, even you jerk.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Commentary. That is for columnists, but it is not editorial columns.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
That's another one.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Criticism, like if you're a you know, drama critic or
a restaurant critic or someone like that. Like Roger Ebert
won one in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So did our old friend Michiko Kakutani, who, as Dave
helpfully pointed out as a she for me because I
got it so so wrong before, so so.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Wrong, which will we already corrected, Dave. Yeah, what else?
Speaker 4 (14:26):
We do have one for editorial writing. This is for
you know, either editorial boards or op ed writers. Right,
illustrated reporting. This is a fun one because that's for
editorial cartoonists.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, that's what they used to call it, and then
they changed it to illustrated reporting and commentary. And for
this year, Mona Chellabi won for The New York Times.
She had a series illustrating Jeff Bezos's wealth and they
were all pretty clever and interesting, so were the finalists
the runners up too, but she had one that showed
(14:59):
so it compared the avera Ridge Amazon employees wages to
Jeff Bezos's wealth, and so that the average Amazon employee
made thirty seven, nine and thirty dollars in twenty twenty
and at that rate, to reach Jeff Bezos's wealth of
one hundred and seventy two billion, they would have had
to have started working in the Pliocene epoch four point
(15:21):
five million years ago. They really drove it home to me.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, those are always fun, Yeah you can.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Yeah, I was going to say like, oh, was it
just a sack of money in the shape of the
United States or something.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
No, it was much more telling that.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah that's how you went a Pulitzer exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
But I mean the runners up too, were just just
just good stuff. Like go look up illustrated reporting and
commentary Pulitzer stuff and you'll you'll be like, wow, this
is amazing that people do this.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
We should we should do one on political what are
they called cartoons?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, editorial cartoons.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, yeah, we should do one on that whole thing.
That'd be a fun one, I think.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Okay, Yumy's uncle is an editorial cartoonist, a well known
one in Japan.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
No way, way, wow, all right, well, we're definitely gonna
do it. Then, okay, that's the old deal.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Cool.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
I have seen that there's breaking news photography, you know,
that's obviously some usually some tragedy is unfolding and someone
will snap a iconic photo. Different from the feature photography award.
This is like a photo series usually yeah that has
a tells a story.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
That's feature photography.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
It's more flip bookie than the breaking news photography.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And then finally, everybody introduced just a few years ago
audio reporting, Like there is a they don't call it
the Podcast Award, but that's kind of what it is.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Well, it includes podcasts, but it can also include like
local yeah, public radio, like features and stories and all that.
That's a huge expansion because before it was all print,
it was all writing, as we'll see. So that's a big,
a big new one. And there's another new one coming
down the pike that allows broadcast outlets like say, your
(17:11):
local NBC affiliate it's a really great reporter that writes
on their website that reporter will now be eligible for
Pulitzer stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah. Then there's also the whole book section, which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Yeah, the Prize for Fiction used to be called the
Prize for novels, but now it's fiction. Usually it's about
American life, says you know, preferably, but it's American author
generally with a story about Americans American ing.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah. So every year they picked that year's Great American
novel basically.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Yeah, and that's remember I said I was reading a book,
a novel for the first time in a while recently. Yeah,
I picked this book because that's sometimes when I'm after
a novel and it's been in a while, I will
go to the Pulitzer list, and that's exactly what I did.
And I'm reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer, which one
in twenty eighteen, and it is so funny and great awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
From in Living Color to Pulitzer Price.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Oh, David Allen Greer com.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Oh oh that's right. There's also one on history, a
one on biography also other way outs biography.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Your man, Charles Mann has not won the Pulitzer. I
looked it up. I was like, surely Josh's guy won
this award for history.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, no, that's more. He's more focused on meso American.
This is America, like United States American.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I think that counts.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I agree, But apparently the Pulitzer committee is not interested
in that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He won which was yours fourteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and then the follow up was fourteen ninety three.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah, he won a big award for that, but not
the Pulitzer.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Oh yeah, no, he definitely deserved it for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yeah. So you mentioned biography.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, there's also now memoir or autobiography, sure.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Which was branded this past year.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, they're just really busting out the new awards.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Right, Yeah, they got a Poetry Award for American Poets
general nonfiction.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
That would be what our book won a Politzer.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
For, right, so nonfiction but not a memoir or autobiography
or biography.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah. And I'm not sure if we said this, and
I'm not sure if it was spelled out, but the
it had to have been released in that year. Yeah, yeah, okay,
so the good point. Okay, that's that's very important. So
like our book will never win a Pulitzer because it
had a shot at winning the year it came out,
and then after that it's out of the running.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Same uh, same with drama. There's a drama one that
we said, like usually it is a great American play.
David Mammott won for Glengarry Glenn Ross.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yeah, what's the name one, oh David.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Well Miranda, Yes, that guy, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
August Wilson won for Fences, another great play. So yeah,
great great plays.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And then music, and this one's typically kind of controversial
because it really reveals just how stuffy the Pulitzer board is.
In any given year. It almost always goes to a
like a recording of classical music that somebody released that year,
and classical music is not exactly America's contribution. These are
(20:29):
American awards. Don't forget about America by Americans. Typically well,
America contributed jazz, rock for the most part, and hip
hop very clearly as far as music goes, and only
one hip hop artist. I'm surprised that there's even one.
Kendrick Lamar won a Pulletzer in twenty seventeen. A couple
(20:49):
of jazz cats have, but for the most part, it's
usually classical music. So look for that to continue to
change in the future because from what I can tell,
the Pulletzer people are hyper aware of how they are
perceived in the in the intelligentsia version of pop culture
and respond to it subtly over time.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah, what I want to know is how many of
our friends in Britain their heads about to pop off.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
That's why I said kind of I qualified the invented
rock and roll. We had a lot to do with it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Hey, of course we did.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Chuck Berry was in British.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
No, I know, we trust me.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
I'm with you, okay, And some can even say that
the you know, the American Blues is the true birth
of what would become rock and roll because all those
British bands were influenced by the American blues exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah to stick it.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, take that our British friends.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
You know what's interesting though, is the biggest sort of
rock bands of the classic rock era, most of those
were not American. I mean that we had our share,
but like when you think about you know, the biggest
bands in the world, they were led Zeppelin and the Who,
and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and mostly British.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So super super duper classic version, not like White Lion
or Dockin No, no, no, because they were Americans through
and through.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
My friend Yeah, yeah, I mean we had Boston and
the Eagles and Aerosmiths and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Sure, but they have flatbirds.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
No.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Boys, See, you're taking a rite down the White Lion lane.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
All right? Should we keep going or should we take
a break here?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Uh, let's keep going since we already took it early one.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Okay. If you guys thought it was a slog before
buckle up.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That's right, because we're going to talk about how they
choose these and the first step. And I think the
main reason we didn't win a Pulitzer Prize is that
we didn't submit our book.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You gotta submit.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
They just don't say, all right, every book that's written
this year will look at you.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
You got to. You gotta pay your seventy five bucks
and submit it.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, we didn't have seventy five bucks.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We did.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
We thought about it. We couldn't couldn't get the company
to back us or.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Pay us to stand off. You and I had to
standoff of it was like, well, I know you got it.
You're not gonna pay it.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I'm it.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
I noticed Jerry didn't step forward.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, that's Jerry needs to bust out the wallet one.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
There are a couple of like our book would have
qualified and every other way it had to have been
published in a hard copy definitely was That separates a
lot of the self published ebooks, which apparently are not
up for Pulitzer consideration. Unless you self publish a book
in hard copy. As long as this in hard copy somewhere,
(23:38):
it's eligible to be considered for a Pulitzer, and you,
the author, like you said, can suggest it, can nominate
it yourself.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
If you're entering in journalism, it has to be in
a news outlet that publishes regularly, so it can't be
the zine you put out, you know when you feel
like it. Right, that can be online only versions. It
doesn't have to be in pay per form, but it
has to be like a legit, you know, qualifying website.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yes, for sure. And then now, like I was saying,
broadcast media outlets, their writers can can be eligible for
stuff posted on their websites, But there's nothing for documentaries.
There's nothing for video only journalism. I predict this changing
in the next within this decade.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Yeah, they'll be just one for like content creator, their influencer.
Dave makes a point here to watch out for when
something claims to be bullets are nominated, because if you
have submitted, then you're technically nominated. It doesn't mean that
you're special because anyone can can nominate. If if you've
(24:47):
got seventy five bucks, you can and you qualify, you
can put yourself in there. I say that they should
require people just say bullets are submitted.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Right, we can't even claim that.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah, but if you don't win. The only other sort
of distinctive honor is if you're one of the three
finalists and you can claim to be a finalist.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yes, yeah, that's yeah. If you're a policer finalist, Like,
you can still toot that horn for sure and people
will listen.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, you're like three out of I think they are
eleven hundred journalism entries per year on average.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Wow, and about fourteen hundred books.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yes, so yeah, now we reach step two. Like your
work has been nominated, it gets shuffled together with a
lot of other stuff and about one hundred different jurors,
sometimes repeat jurors from the year before. You don't have
to just do it once. And it's not the same
people every year for sure. But they're all volunteer jurors.
They get assigned to twenty two different categories. And yes
(25:48):
we said there's twenty three. But the photographers who are
the jurors judge both breaking news and feature photography, and
they are people who are some time former Pulitzer winners.
There are people who are like really well known in
their field. I think like Roxane Gay was one of
the jurors on this past year's poetry Poetry Committee. I
(26:15):
think so, Like you're you're probably pretty good at your
job if you're on a Pulitzer jury.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Josh, I have one question, though, what are any of
those jurors.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Jurors for the local reporting ones.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yes, okay, Giral jurors, Yep, that's great.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
You usually serve a few years and then they'll rotate
you out.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
It is.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
You don't get paid for it's a volunteer thing, but
you got If you're on the book side, you were
reading a lot of books.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, apparently for the fiction category, there might be three
hundred books that you have to read through within several months.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Now.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
I tried and tried to find out if that was
because what I saw was there are six book juries
with five jurors per jury, so thirty different judges, and
they send them in thirty book packages. But I didn't know,
are they really it's impossible to read three hundred books
over the course of months, not if.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You're Pulitzer jury material, My friend.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Is that the deal?
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Because I was trying to verify that, I thought maybe
they read thirty each and just it was all like
packaged together or something.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I didn't see anywhere that contradicted that. And yes, three
hundred books is a lot to read. As a matter
of fact, now that that we're talking about it, that
is a preposterous number for one person to read within
several months.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I mean, how many books is that a week? Two weeks?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
One hundred? I think if my math is correct.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That's almost six books a week. Is that possible?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
No, it's not, because these people also have like regular
jobs that their whole holding down too.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
So I really looked and looked and looked, and I
could not find. What I'm guessing is is that they
get thirty books per judge.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Which is still quite a bit. But yes, that's much
more manageable than three hundred.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
I hope somebody knows, because I really want to get
to the bottom of this. There's no way there they're
reading three hundred books.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I wonder.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I wonder if each judge so this would make a
lot of sense. And again, like we've never advertised ourselves
as experts, and I think we're showing it big time now.
But if I were guessing, chuck each if each one
reads thirty books, they pick like their favorites and present
them to the committee and say, these are some of
(28:41):
my favorites. And everybody does that, and it immediately whittles
it down to a manageable size. That would make a
lot of sense. And then maybe the other ones have
to read the books that the other people brought forth.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yeah, rat, I mean that makes sense. I was just
destraughed at how hard it was to find this out.
I looked and looked and looked, and I couldn't find
out for sure if they each read each book.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
So that's an ongoing thing too. From what I've seen
that the deliberation process is very secretive. The Pulitzer Committee
and board and anyone associated with it has no obligation
whatsoever to be transparent about the judging process at all.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Yeah, that is a criticism. But ultimately what happens is
they will meet in person in February at Columbia, sometimes
in March, and they reduce it to the three finalists,
and then the board picks the ultimate winner from each
of the picks of three. Well that's not true. They
are generally picked from that group of three, but they
(29:45):
are not required to pick from that group of three.
And there have been many cases leap twelve times in
fiction at least, where they did not award a winner
at all.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah. Anytime the board decides not to pick somebody, it's
a huge it's considered a huge slap in the face.
As recently as twenty twenty one. So twenty twelve for fiction,
twenty twenty one, for the Editorial Cartoon prize, the board
opted not to choose from the three finalists Lalo Alcaraz,
(30:18):
Marty two Boles Senior, and Ruben Bowling from Tom the
Dancing Bug. They were the three finalists and none of
them won.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
And so with he did someone win? No, they look
like there was no award to gotcha.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
No award? And I saw Ruben Bowling was basically like, so, yeah,
they're saying no one made Pulitzer worthy material this year,
and that's that's like, that's crazy. And but I liked
Marty two Ball's interpretation. He said that to him, they
had so much trouble picking a winner that nobody won.
(30:51):
They all spoiled when another's chance, because there has to
be there can be a hung jury. You have to
get some percentage of the votes to make it as
the as the winner and not just a finalist.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Well that's what happened in twenty twelve for sure, because
they actually came out and said for fiction.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
That it was a three way tie.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's rare. With the editorial cartoon in twenty twenty one,
they just stayed, Mom, They just said, no awards going
to be awarded.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yeah, but like, how do you have a tie, Like
you could either have an odd number on the board
or let that president because the president of Columbia is
always on the board. Still they should be the tie
breaker or something.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
That is a huge criticism that that's even possible that
you couldn't do that not have a winner because they deadlock.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
All right, thumbs down Bulleitzer for that decision for me
to get with the times.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
So you hit on something earlier. You thought I was saying,
the board can select somebody that wasn't even nominated by
the jury.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Right, yeah, yeah, if it's not someone outside that final three.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, they apparently just need a three quarters vote to
either select somebody that wasn't nominated, that was in that
category or was in another category, and they moved them
to a category they think they are likeli or to win.
That happened with the biography of George Floyd this past year.
(32:20):
It was nominated in biography. Apparently this biography and Jaeger
Hoover with such gangbusters that it was no way even
George Floyd's biography was going to win. They moved it
to the general nonfiction category, and George Floyd's biography won
in that one. So it's like you said, the Pulitzer
committee is very conscious of the messages they're sending out
(32:44):
by their awards, for sure, and sometimes they maneuver to
speak loud and clear.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
All right, I say we take our second break, and
we'll finish up with talking about some of the controversies
and some of the surprises over the years.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Lately I've been learning some stuff about insomnia or aluminia.
How about the one on border like disorder, better under order?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Heard that one before, but it was so nice I
learned it.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Wise, everybody, listen up, stop shut off, stop stop stop.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So uh. One of the things that the Pulitzers are
definitely criticized for is the frequency, Yeah, the frequency of
ords that go to the same news organizations over and
over and over again, because the Pulitzers were award extensive
in depth reporting that you really kind of have to
(34:06):
have a pretty decent budget to carry out. And so
The New York Times has won one hundred and thirty
two Pulitzers over the years. The Washington Post has seventy plus,
The Associated Press has fifty eight so like the big
news organizations are the ones who usually take home the most,
but they have it set up in a way that,
like the local news reporting is much likelier to go
(34:29):
to a smaller organization than the bigger guys. But that
big one, the big daddy, as we said, the Public
Service Award almost always goes to or very often goes to,
one of the large news organizations. But that's not always
the case, Chuck, it's not always the case.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
In twenty seventeen for editorial writing the Storm Lake Times one,
this is a speaking a rural juror. They probably went
wild over this because this is a paper that runs
twice a week with a staff of nine people, with
a circulation of about three thousand in rural Iowa. And
it beat the big daddies, that beat the New York
(35:13):
Times in the Wall Street Journal, among others.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah. In nineteen ninety, a few years earlier, the Washington
Daily News out of Washington, North Carolina. They won because
they had a series of articles that exposed that the
city council was well aware that the drinking water was
tainted with carcinogens and that they were covering it up.
And they won a pulletzer. They had a circulation of
(35:36):
eighty six hundred and forty four. So, in addition to
these really good reporting that it would require for a
small organization to win the public service pullets or the
big one, it's worth pointing out these people are under
the most pressure to not publish stories like that. Yeah,
(35:59):
their friends, neighbors and grocery store shoppers, with the mayor,
with the city manager, with the Chamber of Commerce head
like the people who are who can pressure them and
say like, you're you're ruining the image of our town.
Don't don't write about this or change the tone of it.
So in that sense, those people deserve a pulletzer even
(36:19):
more than say, you know, a huge organization that can
that can just kind of deflect that kind of stuff
is under tremendous pressure. There's a difference getting a call
from the president saying I don't want you to run
this and getting a call from the mayor saying you
don't want to run this, But it's still it seems different.
I feel like the pressure is even greater for smaller
news organizations.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
So as far as controversies go, there are a few
kind of famous incidents that not incidences. By the way,
I've been saying that wrong, have you. An incidents doesn't
mean something that happened, it's an incident.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Somebody pointing that out to me.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, Okay, believe it or not.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Someone wrote in and point out out something that we
said that was bothered them.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
That's a first.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Anyway, we should talk about these incidents.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
The first one was from nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
A woman named Janet Cook at the time was writing
for the Washington Post and was the first black woman
to get a Politzer Prize and feature writing well I
think journalism period. And this was a story about called
Jimmy's World, about an eight year old heroin addict named
Jimmy and Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
It had such an effect that at the time Marion
Barry was mayor. Marion Barry was mayor of DC forever.
He ordered his administration to find this kid and get
him away from his parents. It was a huge It
just dropped a bomb on not just Washington, d C.
But the whole country. And Janet Cook made the whole
(37:52):
thing up.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
So it was submitted by who at the time was
the assistant managing editor of the post, a guy named
Bob Woodward, none other than and he submitted this thing.
She had previously, for three years worked for the Toledo Blade,
which was her hometown newspaper and Josh's sometown newspaper. And
(38:15):
they were like, wait a minute, she worked here, and
we're looking at her bio from the Pulitzer Committee, and like,
this doesn't match up with the bio that she gave us.
It says she speaks all these languages. She doesn't speak
all these languages. She didn't graduate magna cum laude from Vassar,
she didn't have a master's degree from University of Toledo.
(38:37):
And so they start kind of like her old employer
started grilling her publicly about this, and she initially said, like,
all right, I fudged my resume some and literally within
hours it all fell apart. She eventually copped to making
up this whole story. This is as Marion Barry and
the DC cops are coming up empty looking for this
(39:00):
non existent kid, and Marion Barry's casting public doubt. But
was in a you know, kind of a pickle of
a situation. Yeah, like it seems like there's no Jimmy,
but like we're not sure what's going on. I think
the sad thing is that apparently it's sort of like
the A Million Little Pieces book. Yeah, that guy wrote
(39:24):
like I read that book and it was great with
a capital G. And in my mind I was always like, dude,
why did you just should have called it a novel
and you would have been fine. And apparently the writing
in Jimmy's world was so great, like really famous authors
came out and we're like, I just wish she hadn't
have done this all. You know, she should have won
the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
That was so good.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
But she put herself out there for a pulletzer and
that was that was the fatal flaw.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, So it took days before she finally fested up
and and and retracted the story and said that she
was returning her pulletzer, which from what I could tell,
she didn't have to do. She could have been like,
thanks for the pulletzer jumps, I don't I guess they
could rescind it, but she didn't have to give it back.
So she did and moved to France and just stayed
(40:11):
in communicado for a decade or two and then Teresa Carpenter,
who wrote the story Death of a Playmate about the
murder of Dorothy Stratton in The Village Voice, ended up
winning the nineteen eighty one Pulletzer for feature writing. She was,
I guess the runner up, and after Janet Cook gave
it back, Teresa Carpenter got it and that was a
(40:32):
really good story. It was definitely pullets are worthy.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
Alex Haley was another one in nineteen seventy seven for
his book Roots, which I never knew it had a colon,
but I didn't either. The full title of Roots was
Roots Colon the Saga of an American Family. I think
I've seen it before on the cover, but it they
didn't call it mini series that so.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Plus the colon was implied.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
It was a novel, but Haley claimed that it was
based on his family from his own African heritage that
he had researched, and it turned out that that probably
wasn't true. It was unverified, and he admitted to plagiarizing
parts of Roots from other novels. At the time, they
did not rescind his Bulletser though it was a special citation.
(41:18):
It wasn't the Book Prize, So I think they just
let it slide.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yeah, there's a real campaign to get that special citation,
even rescinded by some people. But yeah, I had no
idea that Roots was fabricated in some ways or plagiarized
to And then there's a guy named Walter Duranty who
inspired so much. I guess dislike is a nice way
(41:42):
to put it among journalists that he was awarded the
Poltzer back in nineteen thirty two. People still today are
calling for that to be rescinded. And then the war
in Ukraine kind of flared it back up again after
kind of dying off a little. He was the Moscow
bureau chief for the New York Times, a Pulitzer, like
I said in thirty two, for his reporting on Joseph
(42:04):
Stalin and Stalin's dictatorship, and essentially he was the guy
who was presenting Stalin in a really great light to America.
He was a huge apologist for Stalin. And it's gross
because in his Pulitzer award it says that he was
awarded for his dispassionate reporting. It was not just passionate
(42:25):
at all. It was in favor of Stalin and Stalin's
policies that killed millions of people.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Yeah, and one of his direct quotes was to pretty brutally,
you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. But when
talking about the death of Ukrainians.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Right, so he still has his Pulitzer. People are still
mad about it.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Yeah, we did mention the you know, the sort of
secrecy of how it goes out is always controversial. And
it's like any award, any subjective award, whereas he whether
it's Academy Awards or Emmy's or whatever, they're all subjective.
So there's always going to be people complaining that it's
(43:05):
not rigged. But just like you got to be a
certain kind of thing to win this award. Just like
an Oscar bait movie that they throw out at the
end of the year, there are Pulitzer I don't know
about bait, but you know, when these publications are putting
together these series, they're like, hey, you do a good
job here, and you know what might be at the
end of that road.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Right, there's a really great you can characterize it as
a takedown very easily by Jack Schaeffer in Politico called
the Pulitzer Prize scam from a few years back, and
Jack Schaeffer basically is like, how could you possibly compare
some of this stuff and find any distinguishable difference enough
that says this one's better than this one? And an
(43:48):
example I came up with is the editorial writing Pulitzer
for twenty twenty three. It went to a writer for
a series on the broken promises of the city of
Miami to citizens. Right, the runners up were one that
explained the U'voldi tragedy and the botched police response, and
(44:08):
then the other runner up was about how domestic white
supremacist terrorism affects the United States. How could you compare
those three things and be like, Yep, this one's better.
I mean, because the writing in and of itself is
going to just be top notch to begin with. So
then what you're using the material to judge it? Bi, well,
how do you compare that material to other material? It
(44:31):
is fully subjective, and that drives some people nuts.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Yeah, I mean, I think with any award like that,
the voter, whether it's a board member of the Pulitzer
or an Academy member, is voting on something that speaks
to them the most, I guess.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Right, And like you said, I mean it is if
you look at some of the material, a lot of
the material, it is very liberal in it's bent, and
it shines a light on the kind of the kind
of issues that liberals would be interested and upset about.
(45:06):
And that seems to be generally what the Pulitzer committees
tend to the juries tend to percolate towards the top.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Yeah, I mean it's clubbe university, it's academia. They have
that bent anyway, generally that I mean that joke I
made about Alex Jones earlier.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I want to be clear.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
They're not giving him and they're not denying him the
award because he's a conservative. You know, they're denying him
the award because he's a lying liar, right, you know
there's a difference for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
I'm not even sure he qualifies as conservative at this point.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah, who knows?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
You got anything else on Pulitzer prizes? No?
Speaker 3 (45:45):
I mean, should we put in for podcast or not?
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Oh? I don't. I don't know, man.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
I mean I feel like in order for us to
put in, we would have to do a special, like
four part series on something. It couldn't just be for well,
it certainly couldn't be for all excellence.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
No, definitely, for a lot of reason. Definitely not. But yeah,
we could do We'll do a four part series on
jelly beans.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, or maybe we should just submit to the episode
for the word like.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Yeah, that's a great idea. Okay, Okay, we're gonna do that.
In the meantime, if you want to know more about
the politzerprise, go Rey Jack Shaffer's takedown. It's a good
place to start because he also gives a lot of
background too. And since I said background, it's time for
listener mail.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
This one is from a teacher. We love these, Hey guys,
I'm a chemistry professor at the College of Worcester in Ohio.
And he says Wester not Wooster.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
But that's another story.
Speaker 4 (46:48):
One of the joys in my work is chatting with
college students in the lab while we wait for experiments
to complete, talking about life, current events, random facts. There
have been some uncanny similarities between our conversations and your
recent are you guys listening in Luckily most of my
recent experience. In my most recent experience, you realized the
podcast before the conversation. I was never taught much African history,
(47:12):
and thanks to you walked away from your Highly Selassie
podcast feeling well in formed. I shared what I learned
with one of my students from Ethiopia, and during the
conversation they shared an interesting fact of their own. Apparently
there is a bump engineered on purpose in the road
at the spot where highly Selassie's former residence is. So
(47:33):
when motorists pass by, they hit the bump and their
head bobs, and it is so every head will bow
when they.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Drive by his house.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Pretty amazing.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
And I try to find this out and verified it.
I didn't spend a whole lot of time looking because
you know, fact checking listener mail is something I want
to put a lot of time into. But hey, if
this is true, that's pretty pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, and even if it's not true, I'm going to
go do the same thing in front of my house.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Bags of cementas Yeah, I expense them too.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Awesome. That is from Paul Bonbalay.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Thanks a lot, Paul, that's a great email. Thank you
very much, and yes, we are watching you in your class.
Keep up the good work. If you want to be
like Paul and get in touch with us, we love
hearing additional facts that may be so amazing that they
possibly aren't true, but are still a good idea. If
you want to do that, you can send it in
an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's well, no, Jerry's not here. Man talk
about habit. Ben's here. It's the reign of Ben still
and that makes this these days stuff you should know.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
That's right. The episode in which we talk about a
major reward.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Yeah, that's not a leg lamp, but the Pulitzer Prize.
It is a you know, it's an award with much
prestige attached. They will be giving out the next round
on May eighth, probably not too long after this episode
comes out, in twenty three different categories. At a ceremony
(00:50):
at Columbia University in.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
New York City, did you say Pulitzer? Pulitzer? What do
you say?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That's what I say now. I said Pulitzer for the
vast majority of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Though, Do you know which is right?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I think Pulitzer. Okay, yeah, we've been corrected enough times.
I think it is Pulitzer. You got it right?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
All right?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Good they are and we'll go over all the categories.
But what you should know about the Pulitzer Prize is
they are distinguished works of American works, Yeah, in a
variety of categories. And I don't think even until yesterday
I fully realized that it was such a strictly American award.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I didn't either, which is ironic because it was the brainchild.
It was founded by Joseph Pulitzer, who was a Hungarian immigrant. Yeah,
but loved America. Loved America so much he moved to
Missouri and didn't leave for a while.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
He was born into a wealthy family April tenth, eighteen
forty seven and was a real like ambitious dude. He
came over to fought to fight in the American Civil War.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
For the Union. Yeah that's something, and did, in fact
enlists for a year in the Lincoln Cavalry.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
But he became a newspaper publisher at the age of
twenty five, and by the time he was thirty one,
he was the owner of this Saint Louis Dispatch, like
a major paper.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yet no, the Dispatch is still around. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's amazing. I didn't see how he ended up in
New York, but eventually he made his way to New
York and with his experience running a paper, took over
the world. The New York World, which was just a
New York paper in eighteen eighty three when he started,
(02:39):
but under his tenure it became the first national newspaper
like the USA today of its time.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, and he was, like I said, he was a
tireless worker.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
But he also suffered from poor health for most of
his life. I'm not sure exactly what it was, because
I saw that noises were a big deal. So he
would like have like rooms that were just like vaults
basically so he could sit in silence. But this poor health,
and I think he had failing vision two. He eventually,
(03:09):
at the young age of forty three, technically retired as
editor in chief of the World, but still really maintained
a pretty tight control over that paper.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Right. So today we think of Joseph Pulleitzer, we associate
his name with distinguished works of journalism, like the Cream
of the Crop of journalism every year, and that it
turns out as largely by design, because Joseph Pulleitzer, at
the time he was alive and running the New York World,
(03:38):
was well known for being the essentially the guy who
helped create yellow journalism, using hyperbole, using sensationalism, like writing
front page stories about people's divorces, like just scandal tabloid
stuff like this guy helped establish tabloid journalism in the
(03:58):
United States, And it might not have been quite so
pronounced his brand of yellow journalism had he not had
a like a rival who actually, in like perfect star
Wars in fashion, was actually his protege protege turned rival,
a guy named William Randolph.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Hurst, that's right, And they had the New York American Journal.
American was the big paper for Hurst at the time,
and they were in a real sort of neck and
neck battle to sell newspapers there in New York and
really kind of went at it yellow journalism style.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so yellow journalism, it turns out, has to do.
We must have talked about it in our comics episode
or whatever there was. The Yellow Kid was a character
on the comic called Hogan's Alley and the World and
the Journal American both had versions of this cartoon, essentially
one ripped off the other. So this was known as
(04:56):
the competition between the Yellow Kids, which came to be
known as yellow journalism. Right, and they would just pull
out all the stops, And apparently this race to the
bottom is largely blamed for starting the Spanish American War
essentially or at least getting America behind the whole thing,
so there was like real repercussions to it. People's lives
(05:18):
would be ruined. And so the idea that Joseph Pulitzer's
name is associated with, like the greatness of journalism is
really one of the better cases of I guess whitewashing
your image over time.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, I mean, he did believe in great journalism. He
said at one point, my idea is to recognize that
journalism is or ought to be one of the great
and intellectual professions. And there's more to the quote, but
like he was, he had this idea that he revered
this journalism, maybe because he wasn't doing it. And in
(05:52):
eighteen ninety two he approached Columbia University president and said, hey,
how about we get a graduate school of journalism going
there isn't one in the whole world. They said, eh, no, thanks,
So Missouri, the Missouri University of Missouri School of Journalism
became the first one in nineteen oh eight. The Nobel
Prizes were launched in nineteen oh one, and right after that,
(06:16):
Joseph Pulleitzer said, well, why don't we have our own
awards for journalism. This is nineteen oh two. Two years later,
in nineteen oh four, in his will he said, hey, Columbia,
here's two hundred and fifty grand, which is about nine
million bucks today. Established these prizes, and Columbia had a
new president at the time, and they said this guy
(06:39):
named Nicholas Butler.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
He was like, yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I'll take that money, and I'll also take the two
million dollars that you're going to give us for that
graduate school that we now think is a good idea,
which is about seventy one million bucks today.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That's right, So very wisely, Joseph Pullitzer, he helped establish
his legacy. He steered what his name would be remembered
for by creating the foremost prize for journalists. Right.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
He didn't live to see it though, right.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Uh No, I believe I don't know what year he died,
but it was before nineteen seventy nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yeah, he died in nineteen eleven, Okay, so he didn't
even I think the graduate school opened a year after that,
and then the Pulletzers didn't start until six years later.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Okay, So he probably died with his fingers crossed, and
it actually paid off because not only did he he
did two really smart things. Chuck. One, he created a
panel a board to oversee the Pulitzer Prizes, and he
very wisely said, you it's up to you guys to
(07:44):
let these prizes evolve with the times. Don't let them
just be stuck in like nineteen oh four type stuff, like,
we want them to just kind of grow and evolve,
and they have over time. That was very smart. And
then secondly, he tied them not just a journalist, but
to drama, to music, to fiction, poetry. And at the time,
(08:09):
the American arts were considered foreig inferior to Europe, but
they were still considered vastly superior to American journalism. So
by hitching the wagon of journalism to this more revered
and legitimate form of expression, he raised journalism as well
(08:29):
the profile of journalism, and it worked. I mean, it
was really sharp how we set all this up, because
it paid off in aces.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Yeah, I think music came after him because his initial
eight awards were four for journalism and then four book
and drama awards. Compared to the twenty three categories we
have today fifteen in journalism, five in books, one in drama,
one in music, and one for graduate fellowships in journalism.
(08:57):
And I say we take an early break, yeah, and
go over these categories.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Lately I've been learning some stuff about insomnia or alumnia.
How about the one on borderl disorder that are under order.
You've heard that one be more, but it was so
nice I learned this.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Why except everybody listen up, stop stop lead stop stop stop.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
So we're gonna go over all twenty three categories. Dave
helped us with this, So we'll just tell you a
little bit about him because there's so many and maybe
mentioned like some notable winners or maybe this past year's winner.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
This is going to be a four parter.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah. One thing you will notice is that.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
He was a populist guy, Joseph Pulitzer was very sort
of progressive populist. Even though he was a wealthy dude
from a wealthy family. He really wanted to identify with
a common person. And the winners, as you'll see, still
have a very sort of populous progressive bit to them.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yes, very much so to this day. And it's you know,
through Columbia university.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
Still, so it's not You're not gonna see Alex Jones
winning a Pulitzer Prize, you.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Know, for one of many reasons such a shock.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So the first one, the big Daddy, as they call
it at Columbia, is the Public Service Award. This is
the only Pulitzer award that comes with an actual engraved medal. Right, yeah,
that's what they expect you to do when they hand
you the medals. Dave who helped us with us he
put it, it's like the MVP of Pulitzers. Yeah, this
(11:04):
is so if you win this one, usually it's for
an entire organization. Sometimes they'll they'll mention like the lead writer,
if it was basically the work of one person. But
usually it's like the New York Times newsroom, or the
Washington Post newsroom, or yea once in a while, the
Wall Street Journal's newsroom. Usually one of the big news
services organizations are the ones who win the Public Service Award.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
That's right, that's the big Daddy. So there's also the
Breaking News Reporting Award. Obviously, it's about breaking news and
it is for a story that quote as quickly as possible,
captures events accurately, as they occur and as time passes, eliminates,
provides contexts, and expands upon the initial coverage. One notable
(11:50):
winner was the Denver Post the year the Columbine massacre happened,
or the New Orleans Times pick a UNI for their
coverage of Katrina in two thousands, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, journalism, what journalism is supposed to be. They have
a special award for that.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yeah, newsy journalism.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
There's also investigative reporting, which you don't really need to
spell out because sure you know it is what it is.
But for this year, the Wall Street Journal one, they
had a series of articles, and that's a recurring theme.
Very frequently the winners have had a series of articles
rather than just one big whopper of an article. Yeah,
(12:29):
and that's actually by design, as we'll see. But there
was a series of articles about the conflicts of interest
between people at fifty different federal agencies and the stocks
of the companies that they regulated, and how they used
that information to basically trade publicly. Like you remember our
COVID episode where we started shouting about how some of
(12:50):
the senators who were debriefed on COVID and then went
and sold stock should be locked up. Yeah, it was
about that basically.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
What is for explanatory reporting if it's like a really
complex topic that someone can break down in a in
a great way.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
One for local reporting. So yeah, that speaks for itself.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, and this is where it's much easier for a
smaller organization to shop. Yeah, sure, that's good. Else there's
also national reporting, again usually goes to the larger, the
larger organizations just because they cover more of the nation.
International reporting, same thing. And then feature writing, where you're
(13:36):
you're also kind of credited for bringing in style, like
making a like taking a topic and actually like making
it more readable in some ways. There's just some a
certain flare to it. It's like the TGI Fridays of Pulitzers.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah, I thought.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I'd get a bigger reaction out, even you jerk.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Commentary. That is for columnists, but it is not editorial columns.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
That's another one.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Criticism, like if you're a you know, drama critic or
a restaurant critic or someone like that. Like Roger Ebert
won one in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
So did our old friend Michiko Kakutani, who, as Dave
helpfully pointed out as a she for me because I
got it so so wrong before, so so.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Wrong, which will we already corrected, Dave. Yeah, what else?
Speaker 4 (14:26):
We do have one for editorial writing. This is for
you know, either editorial boards or op ed writers. Right,
illustrated reporting. This is a fun one because that's for
editorial cartoonists.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yeah, that's what they used to call it, and then
they changed it to illustrated reporting and commentary. And for
this year, Mona Chellabi won for The New York Times.
She had a series illustrating Jeff Bezos's wealth and they
were all pretty clever and interesting, so were the finalists
the runners up too, but she had one that showed
(14:59):
so it compared the avera Ridge Amazon employees wages to
Jeff Bezos's wealth, and so that the average Amazon employee
made thirty seven, nine and thirty dollars in twenty twenty
and at that rate, to reach Jeff Bezos's wealth of
one hundred and seventy two billion, they would have had
to have started working in the Pliocene epoch four point
(15:21):
five million years ago. They really drove it home to me.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, those are always fun, Yeah you can.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Yeah, I was going to say like, oh, was it
just a sack of money in the shape of the
United States or something.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
No, it was much more telling that.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah that's how you went a Pulitzer exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
But I mean the runners up too, were just just
just good stuff. Like go look up illustrated reporting and
commentary Pulitzer stuff and you'll you'll be like, wow, this
is amazing that people do this.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
We should we should do one on political what are
they called cartoons?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, editorial cartoons.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, yeah, we should do one on that whole thing.
That'd be a fun one, I think.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Okay, Yumy's uncle is an editorial cartoonist, a well known
one in Japan.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
No way, way, wow, all right, well, we're definitely gonna
do it. Then, okay, that's the old deal.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Cool.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
I have seen that there's breaking news photography, you know,
that's obviously some usually some tragedy is unfolding and someone
will snap a iconic photo. Different from the feature photography award.
This is like a photo series usually yeah that has
a tells a story.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
That's feature photography.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
It's more flip bookie than the breaking news photography.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
And then finally, everybody introduced just a few years ago
audio reporting, Like there is a they don't call it
the Podcast Award, but that's kind of what it is.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Well, it includes podcasts, but it can also include like
local yeah, public radio, like features and stories and all that.
That's a huge expansion because before it was all print,
it was all writing, as we'll see. So that's a big,
a big new one. And there's another new one coming
down the pike that allows broadcast outlets like say, your
(17:11):
local NBC affiliate it's a really great reporter that writes
on their website that reporter will now be eligible for
Pulitzer stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah. Then there's also the whole book section, which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Yeah, the Prize for Fiction used to be called the
Prize for novels, but now it's fiction. Usually it's about
American life, says you know, preferably, but it's American author
generally with a story about Americans American ing.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah. So every year they picked that year's Great American
novel basically.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Yeah, and that's remember I said I was reading a book,
a novel for the first time in a while recently. Yeah,
I picked this book because that's sometimes when I'm after
a novel and it's been in a while, I will
go to the Pulitzer list, and that's exactly what I did.
And I'm reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer, which one
in twenty eighteen, and it is so funny and great awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
From in Living Color to Pulitzer Price.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Oh, David Allen Greer com.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Oh oh that's right. There's also one on history, a
one on biography also other way outs biography.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Your man, Charles Mann has not won the Pulitzer. I
looked it up. I was like, surely Josh's guy won
this award for history.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, no, that's more. He's more focused on meso American.
This is America, like United States American.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I think that counts.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I agree, But apparently the Pulitzer committee is not interested
in that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
He won which was yours fourteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and then the follow up was fourteen ninety three.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah, he won a big award for that, but not
the Pulitzer.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Oh yeah, no, he definitely deserved it for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yeah. So you mentioned biography.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Yeah, there's also now memoir or autobiography, sure.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Which was branded this past year.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, they're just really busting out the new awards.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Right, Yeah, they got a Poetry Award for American Poets
general nonfiction.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
That would be what our book won a Politzer.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
For, right, so nonfiction but not a memoir or autobiography
or biography.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah. And I'm not sure if we said this, and
I'm not sure if it was spelled out, but the
it had to have been released in that year. Yeah, yeah, okay,
so the good point. Okay, that's that's very important. So
like our book will never win a Pulitzer because it
had a shot at winning the year it came out,
and then after that it's out of the running.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Same uh, same with drama. There's a drama one that
we said, like usually it is a great American play.
David Mammott won for Glengarry Glenn Ross.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yeah, what's the name one, oh David.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Well Miranda, Yes, that guy, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
August Wilson won for Fences, another great play. So yeah,
great great plays.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And then music, and this one's typically kind of controversial
because it really reveals just how stuffy the Pulitzer board is.
In any given year. It almost always goes to a
like a recording of classical music that somebody released that year,
and classical music is not exactly America's contribution. These are
(20:29):
American awards. Don't forget about America by Americans. Typically well,
America contributed jazz, rock for the most part, and hip
hop very clearly as far as music goes, and only
one hip hop artist. I'm surprised that there's even one.
Kendrick Lamar won a Pulletzer in twenty seventeen. A couple
(20:49):
of jazz cats have, but for the most part, it's
usually classical music. So look for that to continue to
change in the future because from what I can tell,
the Pulletzer people are hyper aware of how they are
perceived in the in the intelligentsia version of pop culture
and respond to it subtly over time.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah, what I want to know is how many of
our friends in Britain their heads about to pop off.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
That's why I said kind of I qualified the invented
rock and roll. We had a lot to do with it.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Hey, of course we did.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Chuck Berry was in British.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
No, I know, we trust me.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
I'm with you, okay, And some can even say that
the you know, the American Blues is the true birth
of what would become rock and roll because all those
British bands were influenced by the American blues exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah to stick it.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Yeah, take that our British friends.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
You know what's interesting though, is the biggest sort of
rock bands of the classic rock era, most of those
were not American. I mean that we had our share,
but like when you think about you know, the biggest
bands in the world, they were led Zeppelin and the Who,
and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and mostly British.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
So super super duper classic version, not like White Lion
or Dockin No, no, no, because they were Americans through
and through.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
My friend Yeah, yeah, I mean we had Boston and
the Eagles and Aerosmiths and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Sure, but they have flatbirds.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
No.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Boys, See, you're taking a rite down the White Lion lane.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
All right? Should we keep going or should we take
a break here?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Uh, let's keep going since we already took it early one.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Okay. If you guys thought it was a slog before
buckle up.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That's right, because we're going to talk about how they
choose these and the first step. And I think the
main reason we didn't win a Pulitzer Prize is that
we didn't submit our book.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You gotta submit.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
They just don't say, all right, every book that's written
this year will look at you.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
You got to. You gotta pay your seventy five bucks
and submit it.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Yeah, we didn't have seventy five bucks.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
We did.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
We thought about it. We couldn't couldn't get the company
to back us or.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Pay us to stand off. You and I had to
standoff of it was like, well, I know you got it.
You're not gonna pay it.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I'm it.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
I noticed Jerry didn't step forward.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, that's Jerry needs to bust out the wallet one.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
There are a couple of like our book would have
qualified and every other way it had to have been
published in a hard copy definitely was That separates a
lot of the self published ebooks, which apparently are not
up for Pulitzer consideration. Unless you self publish a book
in hard copy. As long as this in hard copy somewhere,
(23:38):
it's eligible to be considered for a Pulitzer, and you,
the author, like you said, can suggest it, can nominate
it yourself.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
If you're entering in journalism, it has to be in
a news outlet that publishes regularly, so it can't be
the zine you put out, you know when you feel
like it. Right, that can be online only versions. It
doesn't have to be in pay per form, but it
has to be like a legit, you know, qualifying website.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yes, for sure. And then now, like I was saying,
broadcast media outlets, their writers can can be eligible for
stuff posted on their websites, But there's nothing for documentaries.
There's nothing for video only journalism. I predict this changing
in the next within this decade.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
Yeah, they'll be just one for like content creator, their influencer.
Dave makes a point here to watch out for when
something claims to be bullets are nominated, because if you
have submitted, then you're technically nominated. It doesn't mean that
you're special because anyone can can nominate. If if you've
(24:47):
got seventy five bucks, you can and you qualify, you
can put yourself in there. I say that they should
require people just say bullets are submitted.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Right, we can't even claim that.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yeah, but if you don't win. The only other sort
of distinctive honor is if you're one of the three
finalists and you can claim to be a finalist.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yes, yeah, that's yeah. If you're a policer finalist, Like,
you can still toot that horn for sure and people
will listen.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, you're like three out of I think they are
eleven hundred journalism entries per year on average.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Wow, and about fourteen hundred books.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yes, so yeah, now we reach step two. Like your
work has been nominated, it gets shuffled together with a
lot of other stuff and about one hundred different jurors,
sometimes repeat jurors from the year before. You don't have
to just do it once. And it's not the same
people every year for sure. But they're all volunteer jurors.
They get assigned to twenty two different categories. And yes
(25:48):
we said there's twenty three. But the photographers who are
the jurors judge both breaking news and feature photography, and
they are people who are some time former Pulitzer winners.
There are people who are like really well known in
their field. I think like Roxane Gay was one of
the jurors on this past year's poetry Poetry Committee. I
(26:15):
think so, Like you're you're probably pretty good at your
job if you're on a Pulitzer jury.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Josh, I have one question, though, what are any of
those jurors.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Jurors for the local reporting ones.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yes, okay, Giral jurors, Yep, that's great.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
You usually serve a few years and then they'll rotate
you out.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
It is.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
You don't get paid for it's a volunteer thing, but
you got If you're on the book side, you were
reading a lot of books.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, apparently for the fiction category, there might be three
hundred books that you have to read through within several months.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Now.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
I tried and tried to find out if that was
because what I saw was there are six book juries
with five jurors per jury, so thirty different judges, and
they send them in thirty book packages. But I didn't know,
are they really it's impossible to read three hundred books
over the course of months, not if.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You're Pulitzer jury material, My friend.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Is that the deal?
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Because I was trying to verify that, I thought maybe
they read thirty each and just it was all like
packaged together or something.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I didn't see anywhere that contradicted that. And yes, three
hundred books is a lot to read. As a matter
of fact, now that that we're talking about it, that
is a preposterous number for one person to read within
several months.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I mean, how many books is that a week? Two weeks?
Speaker 2 (27:50):
One hundred? I think if my math is correct.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
That's almost six books a week. Is that possible?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
No, it's not, because these people also have like regular
jobs that their whole holding down too.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
So I really looked and looked and looked, and I
could not find. What I'm guessing is is that they
get thirty books per judge.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Which is still quite a bit. But yes, that's much
more manageable than three hundred.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
I hope somebody knows, because I really want to get
to the bottom of this. There's no way there they're
reading three hundred books.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I wonder.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I wonder if each judge so this would make a
lot of sense. And again, like we've never advertised ourselves
as experts, and I think we're showing it big time now.
But if I were guessing, chuck each if each one
reads thirty books, they pick like their favorites and present
them to the committee and say, these are some of
(28:41):
my favorites. And everybody does that, and it immediately whittles
it down to a manageable size. That would make a
lot of sense. And then maybe the other ones have
to read the books that the other people brought forth.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yeah, rat, I mean that makes sense. I was just
destraughed at how hard it was to find this out.
I looked and looked and looked, and I couldn't find
out for sure if they each read each book.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
So that's an ongoing thing too. From what I've seen
that the deliberation process is very secretive. The Pulitzer Committee
and board and anyone associated with it has no obligation
whatsoever to be transparent about the judging process at all.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Yeah, that is a criticism. But ultimately what happens is
they will meet in person in February at Columbia, sometimes
in March, and they reduce it to the three finalists,
and then the board picks the ultimate winner from each
of the picks of three. Well that's not true. They
are generally picked from that group of three, but they
(29:45):
are not required to pick from that group of three.
And there have been many cases leap twelve times in
fiction at least, where they did not award a winner
at all.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah. Anytime the board decides not to pick somebody, it's
a huge it's considered a huge slap in the face.
As recently as twenty twenty one. So twenty twelve for fiction,
twenty twenty one, for the Editorial Cartoon prize, the board
opted not to choose from the three finalists Lalo Alcaraz,
(30:18):
Marty two Boles Senior, and Ruben Bowling from Tom the
Dancing Bug. They were the three finalists and none of
them won.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
And so with he did someone win? No, they look
like there was no award to gotcha.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
No award? And I saw Ruben Bowling was basically like, so, yeah,
they're saying no one made Pulitzer worthy material this year,
and that's that's like, that's crazy. And but I liked
Marty two Ball's interpretation. He said that to him, they
had so much trouble picking a winner that nobody won.
(30:51):
They all spoiled when another's chance, because there has to
be there can be a hung jury. You have to
get some percentage of the votes to make it as
the as the winner and not just a finalist.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Well that's what happened in twenty twelve for sure, because
they actually came out and said for fiction.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
That it was a three way tie.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's rare. With the editorial cartoon in twenty twenty one,
they just stayed, Mom, They just said, no awards going
to be awarded.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yeah, but like, how do you have a tie, Like
you could either have an odd number on the board
or let that president because the president of Columbia is
always on the board. Still they should be the tie
breaker or something.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
That is a huge criticism that that's even possible that
you couldn't do that not have a winner because they deadlock.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
All right, thumbs down Bulleitzer for that decision for me
to get with the times.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
So you hit on something earlier. You thought I was saying,
the board can select somebody that wasn't even nominated by
the jury.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Right, yeah, yeah, if it's not someone outside that final three.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, they apparently just need a three quarters vote to
either select somebody that wasn't nominated, that was in that
category or was in another category, and they moved them
to a category they think they are likeli or to win.
That happened with the biography of George Floyd this past year.
(32:20):
It was nominated in biography. Apparently this biography and Jaeger
Hoover with such gangbusters that it was no way even
George Floyd's biography was going to win. They moved it
to the general nonfiction category, and George Floyd's biography won
in that one. So it's like you said, the Pulitzer
committee is very conscious of the messages they're sending out
(32:44):
by their awards, for sure, and sometimes they maneuver to
speak loud and clear.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
All right, I say we take our second break, and
we'll finish up with talking about some of the controversies
and some of the surprises over the years.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Lately I've been learning some stuff about insomnia or aluminia.
How about the one on border like disorder, better under order?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Heard that one before, but it was so nice I
learned it.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Wise, everybody, listen up, stop shut off, stop stop stop.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So uh. One of the things that the Pulitzers are
definitely criticized for is the frequency, Yeah, the frequency of
ords that go to the same news organizations over and
over and over again, because the Pulitzers were award extensive
in depth reporting that you really kind of have to
(34:06):
have a pretty decent budget to carry out. And so
The New York Times has won one hundred and thirty
two Pulitzers over the years. The Washington Post has seventy plus,
The Associated Press has fifty eight so like the big
news organizations are the ones who usually take home the most,
but they have it set up in a way that,
like the local news reporting is much likelier to go
(34:29):
to a smaller organization than the bigger guys. But that
big one, the big daddy, as we said, the Public
Service Award almost always goes to or very often goes to,
one of the large news organizations. But that's not always
the case, Chuck, it's not always the case.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
In twenty seventeen for editorial writing the Storm Lake Times one,
this is a speaking a rural juror. They probably went
wild over this because this is a paper that runs
twice a week with a staff of nine people, with
a circulation of about three thousand in rural Iowa. And
it beat the big daddies, that beat the New York
(35:13):
Times in the Wall Street Journal, among others.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah. In nineteen ninety, a few years earlier, the Washington
Daily News out of Washington, North Carolina. They won because
they had a series of articles that exposed that the
city council was well aware that the drinking water was
tainted with carcinogens and that they were covering it up.
And they won a pulletzer. They had a circulation of
(35:36):
eighty six hundred and forty four. So, in addition to
these really good reporting that it would require for a
small organization to win the public service pullets or the
big one, it's worth pointing out these people are under
the most pressure to not publish stories like that. Yeah,
(35:59):
their friends, neighbors and grocery store shoppers, with the mayor,
with the city manager, with the Chamber of Commerce head
like the people who are who can pressure them and
say like, you're you're ruining the image of our town.
Don't don't write about this or change the tone of it.
So in that sense, those people deserve a pulletzer even
(36:19):
more than say, you know, a huge organization that can
that can just kind of deflect that kind of stuff
is under tremendous pressure. There's a difference getting a call
from the president saying I don't want you to run
this and getting a call from the mayor saying you
don't want to run this, But it's still it seems different.
I feel like the pressure is even greater for smaller
news organizations.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
So as far as controversies go, there are a few
kind of famous incidents that not incidences. By the way,
I've been saying that wrong, have you. An incidents doesn't
mean something that happened, it's an incident.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Somebody pointing that out to me.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, Okay, believe it or not.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Someone wrote in and point out out something that we
said that was bothered them.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
That's a first.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Anyway, we should talk about these incidents.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
The first one was from nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
A woman named Janet Cook at the time was writing
for the Washington Post and was the first black woman
to get a Politzer Prize and feature writing well I
think journalism period. And this was a story about called
Jimmy's World, about an eight year old heroin addict named
Jimmy and Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
It had such an effect that at the time Marion
Barry was mayor. Marion Barry was mayor of DC forever.
He ordered his administration to find this kid and get
him away from his parents. It was a huge It
just dropped a bomb on not just Washington, d C.
But the whole country. And Janet Cook made the whole
(37:52):
thing up.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
So it was submitted by who at the time was
the assistant managing editor of the post, a guy named
Bob Woodward, none other than and he submitted this thing.
She had previously, for three years worked for the Toledo Blade,
which was her hometown newspaper and Josh's sometown newspaper. And
(38:15):
they were like, wait a minute, she worked here, and
we're looking at her bio from the Pulitzer Committee, and like,
this doesn't match up with the bio that she gave us.
It says she speaks all these languages. She doesn't speak
all these languages. She didn't graduate magna cum laude from Vassar,
she didn't have a master's degree from University of Toledo.
(38:37):
And so they start kind of like her old employer
started grilling her publicly about this, and she initially said, like,
all right, I fudged my resume some and literally within
hours it all fell apart. She eventually copped to making
up this whole story. This is as Marion Barry and
the DC cops are coming up empty looking for this
(39:00):
non existent kid, and Marion Barry's casting public doubt. But
was in a you know, kind of a pickle of
a situation. Yeah, like it seems like there's no Jimmy,
but like we're not sure what's going on. I think
the sad thing is that apparently it's sort of like
the A Million Little Pieces book. Yeah, that guy wrote
(39:24):
like I read that book and it was great with
a capital G. And in my mind I was always like, dude,
why did you just should have called it a novel
and you would have been fine. And apparently the writing
in Jimmy's world was so great, like really famous authors
came out and we're like, I just wish she hadn't
have done this all. You know, she should have won
the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
That was so good.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
But she put herself out there for a pulletzer and
that was that was the fatal flaw.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, So it took days before she finally fested up
and and and retracted the story and said that she
was returning her pulletzer, which from what I could tell,
she didn't have to do. She could have been like,
thanks for the pulletzer jumps, I don't I guess they
could rescind it, but she didn't have to give it back.
So she did and moved to France and just stayed
(40:11):
in communicado for a decade or two and then Teresa Carpenter,
who wrote the story Death of a Playmate about the
murder of Dorothy Stratton in The Village Voice, ended up
winning the nineteen eighty one Pulletzer for feature writing. She was,
I guess the runner up, and after Janet Cook gave
it back, Teresa Carpenter got it and that was a
(40:32):
really good story. It was definitely pullets are worthy.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
Alex Haley was another one in nineteen seventy seven for
his book Roots, which I never knew it had a colon,
but I didn't either. The full title of Roots was
Roots Colon the Saga of an American Family. I think
I've seen it before on the cover, but it they
didn't call it mini series that so.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Plus the colon was implied.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
It was a novel, but Haley claimed that it was
based on his family from his own African heritage that
he had researched, and it turned out that that probably
wasn't true. It was unverified, and he admitted to plagiarizing
parts of Roots from other novels. At the time, they
did not rescind his Bulletser though it was a special citation.
(41:18):
It wasn't the Book Prize, So I think they just
let it slide.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yeah, there's a real campaign to get that special citation,
even rescinded by some people. But yeah, I had no
idea that Roots was fabricated in some ways or plagiarized
to And then there's a guy named Walter Duranty who
inspired so much. I guess dislike is a nice way
(41:42):
to put it among journalists that he was awarded the
Poltzer back in nineteen thirty two. People still today are
calling for that to be rescinded. And then the war
in Ukraine kind of flared it back up again after
kind of dying off a little. He was the Moscow
bureau chief for the New York Times, a Pulitzer, like
I said in thirty two, for his reporting on Joseph
(42:04):
Stalin and Stalin's dictatorship, and essentially he was the guy
who was presenting Stalin in a really great light to America.
He was a huge apologist for Stalin. And it's gross
because in his Pulitzer award it says that he was
awarded for his dispassionate reporting. It was not just passionate
(42:25):
at all. It was in favor of Stalin and Stalin's
policies that killed millions of people.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Yeah, and one of his direct quotes was to pretty brutally,
you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. But when
talking about the death of Ukrainians.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Right, so he still has his Pulitzer. People are still
mad about it.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Yeah, we did mention the you know, the sort of
secrecy of how it goes out is always controversial. And
it's like any award, any subjective award, whereas he whether
it's Academy Awards or Emmy's or whatever, they're all subjective.
So there's always going to be people complaining that it's
(43:05):
not rigged. But just like you got to be a
certain kind of thing to win this award. Just like
an Oscar bait movie that they throw out at the
end of the year, there are Pulitzer I don't know
about bait, but you know, when these publications are putting
together these series, they're like, hey, you do a good
job here, and you know what might be at the
end of that road.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Right, there's a really great you can characterize it as
a takedown very easily by Jack Schaeffer in Politico called
the Pulitzer Prize scam from a few years back, and
Jack Schaeffer basically is like, how could you possibly compare
some of this stuff and find any distinguishable difference enough
that says this one's better than this one? And an
(43:48):
example I came up with is the editorial writing Pulitzer
for twenty twenty three. It went to a writer for
a series on the broken promises of the city of
Miami to citizens. Right, the runners up were one that
explained the U'voldi tragedy and the botched police response, and
(44:08):
then the other runner up was about how domestic white
supremacist terrorism affects the United States. How could you compare
those three things and be like, Yep, this one's better.
I mean, because the writing in and of itself is
going to just be top notch to begin with. So
then what you're using the material to judge it? Bi, well,
how do you compare that material to other material? It
(44:31):
is fully subjective, and that drives some people nuts.
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Yeah, I mean, I think with any award like that,
the voter, whether it's a board member of the Pulitzer
or an Academy member, is voting on something that speaks
to them the most, I guess.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Right, And like you said, I mean it is if
you look at some of the material, a lot of
the material, it is very liberal in it's bent, and
it shines a light on the kind of the kind
of issues that liberals would be interested and upset about.
(45:06):
And that seems to be generally what the Pulitzer committees
tend to the juries tend to percolate towards the top.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Yeah, I mean it's clubbe university, it's academia. They have
that bent anyway, generally that I mean that joke I
made about Alex Jones earlier.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
I want to be clear.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
They're not giving him and they're not denying him the
award because he's a conservative. You know, they're denying him
the award because he's a lying liar, right, you know
there's a difference for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
I'm not even sure he qualifies as conservative at this point.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah, who knows?
Speaker 2 (45:42):
You got anything else on Pulitzer prizes? No?
Speaker 3 (45:45):
I mean, should we put in for podcast or not?
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Oh? I don't. I don't know, man.
Speaker 4 (45:51):
I mean I feel like in order for us to
put in, we would have to do a special, like
four part series on something. It couldn't just be for well,
it certainly couldn't be for all excellence.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
No, definitely, for a lot of reason. Definitely not. But yeah,
we could do We'll do a four part series on
jelly beans.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, or maybe we should just submit to the episode
for the word like.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Yeah, that's a great idea. Okay, Okay, we're gonna do that.
In the meantime, if you want to know more about
the politzerprise, go Rey Jack Shaffer's takedown. It's a good
place to start because he also gives a lot of
background too. And since I said background, it's time for
listener mail.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
This one is from a teacher. We love these, Hey guys,
I'm a chemistry professor at the College of Worcester in Ohio.
And he says Wester not Wooster.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
But that's another story.
Speaker 4 (46:48):
One of the joys in my work is chatting with
college students in the lab while we wait for experiments
to complete, talking about life, current events, random facts. There
have been some uncanny similarities between our conversations and your
recent are you guys listening in Luckily most of my
recent experience. In my most recent experience, you realized the
podcast before the conversation. I was never taught much African history,
(47:12):
and thanks to you walked away from your Highly Selassie
podcast feeling well in formed. I shared what I learned
with one of my students from Ethiopia, and during the
conversation they shared an interesting fact of their own. Apparently
there is a bump engineered on purpose in the road
at the spot where highly Selassie's former residence is. So
(47:33):
when motorists pass by, they hit the bump and their
head bobs, and it is so every head will bow
when they.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Drive by his house.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Pretty amazing.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
And I try to find this out and verified it.
I didn't spend a whole lot of time looking because
you know, fact checking listener mail is something I want
to put a lot of time into. But hey, if
this is true, that's pretty pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, and even if it's not true, I'm going to
go do the same thing in front of my house.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Bags of cementas Yeah, I expense them too.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Awesome. That is from Paul Bonbalay.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Thanks a lot, Paul, that's a great email. Thank you
very much, and yes, we are watching you in your class.
Keep up the good work. If you want to be
like Paul and get in touch with us, we love
hearing additional facts that may be so amazing that they
possibly aren't true, but are still a good idea. If
you want to do that, you can send it in
an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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