Pulitzer Prize awards shared by news outlets
NEW YORK (AP) — Thirteen news organisations shared the honours in the journalism categories at the annual Pulitzer Prizes, which covered a wide variety of subjects in a year when no single event dominated the front pages. A jazz composition won in the music categoryAlso for the first time, the Pulitzer Prize Board pulled a play — “Rabbit Hole” — out of the hat for the drama award after three finalists approved by the jury in that category failed to attract the necessary majority of board members.
The Wall Street Journal was the only multiple winner, taking home the international reporting and public service awards for its coverage of China and a stock-options scandal that roiled corporate America.
Paul Steiger, the Journal’s managing editor, called the stock stories “tremendous pieces of work” that “resulted in more than 100 companies coming under investigation and many companies having to restate their earnings.”
The Associated Press won the Pulitzer in breaking news photography for Jerusalem-based staff photographer Oded Balilty’s dramatic picture of a Jewish settler trying to resist Israeli security officers. It was the news agency’s 49th Pulitzer, 30 of them for photography.
“I feel like today I kissed the moon,” Balilty exulted in a telephone interview while celebrating with colleagues in Jerusalem.
The AP’s photo staff was a finalist in the same category for coverage of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Their success in the breaking-news photo category enhances the truly spectacular and enduring contribution made by AP photojournalists over decades,” AP President and CEO Tom Curley said. “They have added to an unrivalled collection of iconic images displayed on front pages and newscasts that have become forever etched in public consciousness.”
The Pulitzers, announced on Monday by Columbia University, honoured achievements in American journalism and the arts for the 91st year.
Ornette Coleman’s victory in the music category for a jazz composition titled “Sound Grammar” represented a departure from customary Pulitzer awards for classical works. Pulitzer Administrator Sig Gissler said the only other jazz figure to win a Pulitzer was Wynton Marsalis in 1997, but that was for a classical composition.
In literature, winners included “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,” by Lawrence Wright, in general nonfiction, and “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation,” by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, in the history category.
“It’s never too late,” quipped Roberts, a University of Maryland journalism professor who won his first personal Pulitzer after a distinguished career at The New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, which earned 17 Pulitzers during his 18-year tenure as editor.
The natural disasters that dominated last year’s Pulitzer competition were notably absent this year, Gissler said, quoting one board member as saying this was “probably good news for the country.” He said a reduced number of entries on the war in Iraq possibly reflected security risks and other “severe barriers to coverage” by the news media.
The Birmingham News’ Brett Blackledge won a Pulitzer for an expose of cronyism and corruption in Alabama’s two-year colleges. His work originally was entered for public service, but was moved to the investigative reporting category.
The staff of the Oregonian, of Portland, won in breaking news for its coverage of a family lost in the mountains during a blizzard. James Kim and his family took a wrong turn while returning home to San Francisco following a Thanksgiving trip. Kim was found dead after his wife and two young daughters were rescued. The judges praised the newspaper for its “skillful and tenacious coverage.”
Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution won for “courageous, clear-headed” commentary, and Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly earned the criticism prize for “zestful, wide-ranging” restaurant reviews.
