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Five myths about the Pulitzer Prizes

Canada Goose online Philadelphia Daily News reporters Wendy official canada goose outlet Ruderman, left, and Barbara Laker celebrate after winning the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting at the Daily News offices in Philadelphia. (Mark Stehle/Associated Press) Canada Goose online

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Canada Goose Jackets Roy J. Louis Post Dispatch until his death in 1911 created the Pulitzer Prizes through his will, back when national awards were rare. He wanted the prizes to go to the year’s best in journalism and in American arts and letters, as a way to elevate public esteem for canada goose outlet in chicago the media. As anticipation builds in America’s newsrooms for Monday’s announcement of the 98th round of the Pulitzer Prizes at Columbia University, let’s examine some of the myths surrounding the awards. Canada Goose Jackets

1. Pulitzer Prizes honor the best of American journalism.

buy canada goose jacket cheap Actually, the journalism Pulitzers are newspaper centric and limited in their scope. Designed as honors for the nation’s dailies and the wire services that serve them, the canada goose outlet buffalo prizes never canada goose outlet black friday have been extended to TV news or magazines, except those that appear as newspaper supplements. So, canada goose outlet parka for example, Seymour Hersh won multiple awards but not a Pulitzer for his 2004 New Yorker expos of Abu Ghraib prison torture. Hersh, while canada goose outlet location with a small wire service, did earn a Pulitzer in 1970 for exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. buy canada goose jacket cheap

canada goose coats on sale In 2009, new rules allowed the consideration of material that has run in online publications unconnected to a newspaper, but the prize categories are still narrow: Eight are reporting based, with the others honoring opinion writing, criticism, cartooning and photography. canada goose coats on sale

MYTH: Sanctions never canada goose outlet black friday sale work. “The most complete academic studies canada goose jacket outlet store on the matter show that sanctions lead to concessions from the targeted government in one out of every three or four cases,” writes Daniel W. Drezner http://www.mycanadagoosejacket.org in “Five myths about sanctions. “That is a far cry from never working.” Here, President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel leave a joint news conference at the White House in May. The leaders discussed additional sanctions to punish Russia for its incursion into Ukraine. Charles Dharapak/AP

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Canada Goose Outlet 2. Small news canada goose uk outlets don’t stand much chance against major newspapers. Canada Goose Outlet

It canada goose outlet ontario may seem that way in years when one large publication grabs a hefty number of prizes, as when the New York Times canada goose outlet online won seven Pulitzers in 2002 or when The Washington Post took home six in 2008. But canada goose outlet houston there always seems to be at least one smaller winner in the group of 14 and often in the public service or breaking news categories.

In 2012, the Tuscaloosa News staff won the breaking news award for coverage of a tornado that devastated that Alabama city, and Sara Ganim and other staffers of Harrisburg, Pa.’s Patriot News won the local reporting prize for reporting on the Penn State sex abuse scandal. My favorite David and Goliath public service award went to the Point canada goose outlet online store Reyes (Calif.) Light in 1979. The 7,000 circulation weekly exposed how an anti drug abuse group became a dangerous cult.

canada goose clearance Smaller canada goose outlet nyc outlets can win in other categories, too. And recent collaborations between bigger news organizations and online upstarts augurs canada goose outlet well for future Pulitzer honors for small enterprises. canada goose clearance

Canada Goose Parka 3. There are few Pulitzer surprises. Canada Goose Parka

Canada Goose sale Unlike the Oscars, whose finalists are known weeks canada goose outlet ottawa in advance, the Pulitzers don’t disclose who was in the running until the day the prizes are announced. While there once were widespread leaks of finalists by a group of journalists called “the Cabal” that made a practice of rooting out a list after the jury selections in recent years it’s been more of a guessing game. Canada Goose sale

Much of today’s canada goose outlet montreal Pulitzer secrecy stems from the board’s efforts to shore up the canada goose outlet price leaks. But the Pulitzer organization always has been tight lipped, including about why one entry canada goose outlet in usa wins out over other finalists. And the secret deepens when no award is given in a category. No prize was awarded in 2012 for editorial writing or in 2011 for breaking news reporting, for instance. In the arts, the most shocking omission was also in 2012, when no fiction prize was given.

In the days between the Pulitzer board’s final selections and the Monday announcement, some editors of winning publications get word. But plenty of winners still are caught off guard, such as Alexandra Berzon, whose stories on construction industry deaths helped the Las Vegas Sun win the public service prize in 2009. Berzon was canada goose outlet mall covering a court hearing when the Pulitzer was announced; she found out about it when a receptionist congratulated her when she returned to the newsroom.

canada goose 4. The canada goose outlet online uk quest for Pulitzers does a disservice to readers. canada goose

As the Pulitzers evolved, the canada goose outlet jackets winners gave newspapers models for great reporting. The soaring reputation of the Pulitzers in the 1920s and ’30s led editors and reporters to try harder to win them: More projects were planned, and more resources were canada goose outlet reviews put into investigative teams. That also meant there were some cases of chasing prizes first and serving readers second.

canada goose store But Pulitzer winning projects can produce monumental change. After the Las Vegas Sun exposed safety violations and how casinos, regulators and even unions put a low priority on worker health, deaths on the city’s work sites stopped. The Boston Globe’s articles that won the 2003 public service prize, uncovering sexual abuse canada goose sale uk of young parishioners by Catholic priests, sparked canada goose outlet toronto factory global reforms. And The Washington Post’s investigation of canada goose factory outlet vancouver mistreatment of wounded veterans at canada goose outlet online store review Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the public service canada goose outlet las vegas winner in 2008, succeeded in “evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials,” the Pulitzer board said. canada goose store

As newspapers navigate financial hardships, many are keeping their investigative teams, even if investors sometimes see them as inefficient.

canadian goose jacket 5. The Pulitzers are stuck in the 20th century. canadian goose jacket

cheap Canada Goose Certainly, canada goose outlet florida the Pulitzer Prizes have been slow to change almost as slow as the newspaper business has been to adapt to the Internet. But lately, some of the best online news reporting and multimedia storytelling are being honored. And the Pulitzer board has had a number of younger, non newspaper members join it lately, bringing more experience in canada goose outlet kokemuksia digital and multimedia journalism. cheap Canada Goose

canada goose clearance sale Last year’s national reporting winners, staffers from the tiny, online InsideClimate News, canada goose vest outlet show how an upstart news organization can turn great reporting into a Pulitzer. The site exposed flawed regulation of the nation’s oil pipelines. And the 2013 prize for feature writing went to John Branch of the New York Times for his inventive “Snow Fall” narrative, about skiers killed in an avalanche, which combined video, audio and interactive charts in an entirely novel way. canada goose clearance sale

canada goose coats And then there’s the most common myth of all: how to pronounce the prizes’ name. For the record, it’s pronounced “pull it sir,” not “pew lit sir.” Even some winners get it wrong canada goose coats.