Jack Shafer assaults the prize jewel of journalism in his Press Box commentary in Slate. In "So You Won a Pulitzer: Who Cares?" Shafer writes, "In a perfect world, the prizes would be treated as footnotes rather than the stuff of headlines, yet they make many a front page the day after they're announced, especially in the winning newspapers."
Perhaps Shafer has a point. Maybe newspapers do make such a big fuss about the awards they win and generate so much self-aggrandizing hype over them because, well, they control the flow of information and tell us what is and what is not news.
When a newspaper wins an award it becomes news because it says it is news.
Shafer opines on the manner in which the awards are handed out:
There's no real science or even fairness behind the picking of winners and losers, with the prizes handed out according to a formula composed of one part log-rolling, two parts merit, three parts "we owe him one," and four parts random distribution.
Part of me wants to suspend judgment on Shafer's cynicism and vitriol.
I have long considered how big newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, seem to consistently “game” the system by strategizing and packaging coverage that will ultimately give them an advantage over other newspapers. The big newspapers, it is argued, can afford to devote resources, human and otherwise, to developing and producing prize-winning entries year after year.
Shafer quotes Alexander Cockburn’s assessment of the awards as a “self-validating ritual” and points out that the Pulitzer Committee is nothing more than “glorified newspaper trade association.”
However, I would like to suspend judgment on how the Pulitzers are judged and awarded, because I feel there is value in the content of the winning stories. I am hopeful that readers will appreciate, even if it is for a short while, the substance of the stories and the journalists who often risk their lives to report them.
I think skepticism is healthy and I appreciate Shafer’s candor. At the same time, unfortunately, this skepticism can also sound a lot like sour grapes.