2022 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Never knew. Never asked.

She was very narcissistic, though, so
I think she just submitted her own work.

 

Always loved the Lou Grant episode where they learn the foundation sponsoring some big prize was funded by money made poisoning third-world countries. Lou makes a speech, saying the group worked hard on the (unrelated) project that they wanted to submit and anyone can take the submission package to a mailbox and drop it off, no questions asked. The postmark deadline for entries is approaching, people are working, no dialogue....Lou looks up as the scene ends and the submission package is still sitting on the desk.

I'd almost like to see an "anti-" Lou Grant news show. Al Franken's "Lateline" was close, but could have been darker - with hosts harassing interns, conspiracy theorists making regular appearances, an exec saying "I don't care - it's GREAT television and the ratings are UP!"

 

Also a statement on the industry, too. I was at a major metro daily not too long ago. Over time, we started losing key newsroom pieces to national outlets. Have to imagine the inability to retain + develop reporters has led to the gulf between WaPo/NYT and everyone else.

 

It's not the main thing of the show, but in Succession the glimpes of the media operation deliver some of this. One episode last season was devoted to the family's network, ATN, using its influence to select which presidential candidate they were going to back. Their pitch to a MAGA-type candidate includes the pitch that will revamp their evening programming thusly: "Sluice out the fսcking porridge and add some sriracha. Poach some of those TikTok psychos, you know? E-girls with fսcking guns and Juul pods, you know?"

 

Saw a photo of a Pulitzer win from my old place from a few years back - three people in the photo, nobody in the background. One of the winners had already left the industry.

 

I years ago worked for Matt Storin, at that time a Pulitzer judge. The best he could say about it was that it was a lot of work.

INSPIRING

 

My most recent full-time journalism job, I was laid off at the end of it, and between the old owners pinching pennies and Gatehouse, the reporting staff has shrunk from around 5 FT plus freelances, to 1 or 2 FT plus misc management now contributing "content" pulled from the web or AP with an occasional reporting effort. I like the two people I know that still work there, but I could give less than a shit if they somehow managed to get a Pulitzer.

Likewise, I won a pair of awards in the early 2010s, but even then I recognized it was partially because the field was narrowed so much. I probably beat out like 5 or 6 other submissions, not a dozen or more, like at any point previous. Nowadays, I see my older paper hyping all the awards they've won, and my reaction is, "Against who?"

 

One time in the 90s when Gannett was pushing its journalistic pyramid we had a meeting
On each side of the pyramid was the words Readers Penetration Satisfaction
Meaning, of course, readers can’t have satisfaction without penetration
One of my coworkers afterward couldn’t get over their goals
“They want us to be Best of Gannett
“Fuck Pulitzers
“Be Best of Gannett.”

 

I noticed this year the Pulitzer Committee discontinued the Editorial Cartooning category and added the broader Illustrated Reporting and Commentary category. The population of editorial cartoonists has been reduced so much there were not enough to support the former prize.

 

You just described Fox News.