[HN Gopher] 2020 Pulitzer Prize Winners
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2020 Pulitzer Prize Winners
Author : hhs
Score : 116 points
Date : 2020-05-04 20:10 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pulitzer.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pulitzer.org)
| jpdus wrote:
| The subject of one winning story (Governor Bevin) apparently knew
| that his pardons were Pulitzer-worthy before:
|
| https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1257389461429784583?s=19
| thebokehwokeh2 wrote:
| I don't understand what Bevin means by this. Is he being
| sarcastic?
| 0xy wrote:
| Should anyone be proud of a Pulitzer considering they gave one
| out to the New York Times for covering up genocide in the USSR?
| [1]
|
| It would seem to me that the Pulitzer Prize is ethically bankrupt
| considering who you share this 'prestige' with.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty
| gen220 wrote:
| The winner for "Feature Writing" is a heartbreaking, empathetic,
| and incredible piece, that tilted my perspective on the US
| government's handling of 9/11, and how the government and big
| (dis-)organizations work in general.
|
| Given his source material, it would have been easy (and
| justified) to construct the narrative into a tirade against the
| CIA. Instead, Taub takes a rather empathetic and detached frame
| of reference, and the result is a monument to the human toll of
| ruthlessly-executed ignorance. None of the people (victims or
| perpetrators) seem to fully understand their absurd roles: their
| actions driven by jumpy supervisors and acquaintances, who in
| turn are driven by a mix of fear, ideology and separation from
| "ground".
|
| And once the veil of ignorance is lifted, there are reputations
| and legacies to protect, bureaucratic boxes that "cannot" be
| unchecked. There's no undoing what's set in motion, because
| "undo" implies reflection and the admission of wrongdoing, which
| is something that we _really_ struggle with as a society.
|
| It's a tragedy you see play out everywhere, and this is an
| particularly poignant and tragic case, beautifully presented. If
| it isn't a case study already, it ought to be one.
|
| (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/22/guantanamos-da...)
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| I honestly don't know much about what it takes to win a Pulitzer.
|
| But while scrolling down that page, I was crossing my fingers for
| APM's podcast In the Dark to win something.
|
| The second season following the Curtis Flowers case is
| fascinating, infuriating, beautiful, harrowing, and culminates in
| a US Supreme Court case...
|
| I don't know where that podcast sits on the spectrum of "pulp
| crime interest" to "genuine reporting" but IMO it's far, far on
| the side of "genuine reporting".
| danso wrote:
| If I'm reading the Wikipedia page correctly [0], APM's latest
| season finished in 2018, although it did publish updates in
| early 2019. IIRC to be eligible for this year's Pulitzer
| (specifically the one in audio reporting, which didn't exist in
| 2019), the season would have had to been published in 2019.
|
| That said, This American Life did win a Pulitzer in 2011, but
| it had ProPublica as a publishing partner, and I believe it was
| the first time a journalism Pulitzer went to a project that did
| not publish in print [1].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Dark_(podcast)#Season_2...
|
| [1]
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/about/announcements/pulitze...
| tolstoshev wrote:
| Same. It re-opened the case and got it all the way to the
| Supreme Court, so that's pretty huge.
| Arainach wrote:
| What does "Moved into contention by the Board" mean in the
| context of these awards?
| apendleton wrote:
| I believe these are cases where the publication itself didn't
| nominate the piece or author for consideration as typically
| happens, but the board decided to consider it anyway.
| elteto wrote:
| Glad to see smaller publications putting out good journalism and
| being recognized.
|
| High quality reporting is, still, one of the most effective ways
| to speak truth to power. Unfortunately the internet has decimated
| smaller journals and local papers, so local issues might never
| get reported on. I wish that trend would reverse, but I have no
| idea how one would do that.
| save_ferris wrote:
| Pay for your news, get a subscription to a local paper,
| participate in your local political process if you can. We're
| all so focused on work and what's going on in Washington that
| we don't allow ourselves to reserve any time or energy to
| understand local politics, because they're "boring".
| jeffbee wrote:
| My local paper and in fact every paper in California mixes a
| smattering of worthwhile reporting into non-stop stupidity.
| Every morning the editors of the LA Times wake up and think
| of a new way to trash every one of my core beliefs, so it
| doesn't matter to me that the LA Times published one (1)
| worthwhile piece of art criticism in 2019. That's certainly
| not enough to make me overlook the fact that the LA Times has
| been running a large-scale real estate scam for over 100
| years, considering that housing is the most important issue
| to me.
|
| I subscribe to CalMatters and Berkeleyside and Boom
| California. Anyone who considers themselves a good local
| journalist needs to write for those outlets if they want my
| dollar. I'm not here to enrich the shareholders of legacy
| newspapers.
|
| ETA: There actually is one good newspaper in California: the
| Anderson Valley Advertiser. Wouldn't want to miss mentioning
| America's last newspaper.
| jzer0cool wrote:
| Is it possible to win Pulitzer Prize with just 1 submission -
| (e.g. amateur submission in 1 of the categories)? Or does one
| require a track record of some sort for the year?
| danso wrote:
| Putting aside the likely bias towards established organizations
| (big and small), most winners in the journalism article
| categories submit a series of articles, because practically
| speaking, several small articles often lead up to the big
| investigation (e.g. Watergate) [0]; or, one big investigation
| leads to a series of followups, including coverage about the
| impact and consequences from the story, e.g. Snowden files [1].
|
| That said, there are one-shot amateur Pulitzer winners, most
| notably in the photography categories. The Pulitzer winning
| photo of the Kent State massacre was taken by a photojournalism
| student [2]. And one of the most famous early Pulitzer photos
| was taken by a non-journalism amateur: 24-year-old Arnold Hardy
| in 1947 [3].
|
| I think the contemporary category where you will find the most
| examples of single-article winners will be Feature Writing, but
| I'm not aware of any amateurs who have won it:
| https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/211
|
| [0] https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-post
|
| [1] https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-post-1
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Filo
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Hardy
| typon wrote:
| Each story was impactful, either at a local, national or global
| level. Congratulations to the winners. We need more courageous
| and thoughtful journalism.
| Amorymeltzer wrote:
| Two specific points of note:
|
| - This is the first year the audio reporting category is being
| awarded; This American Life seems like a perfect inaugural
| winner.
|
| - Colson Whitehead (Fiction) also won in the same category in
| 2017.
| node-bayarea wrote:
| Pulitzer prize goes to.... liberals writing issues that only
| extreme liberals care about! Surprise!
| whymauri wrote:
| Clearly only liberals care about airplane defects killings
| hundreds of people. Did you even click on the link?
| ConanRus wrote:
| yeah, two cases: one on Being, which was covered by everybody
| and in every country, and Baltimore mayor corruption.
| everything else just usual liberal BS.
| op03 wrote:
| That Epstein cartoon is brilliant given that no one still seems
| to know what happened - https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/barry-
| blitt-contributor-new...
| trimbo wrote:
| > Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The
| Seattle Times
|
| Worth their weight in gold on the 737 Max story. Congratulations!
| jvandonsel wrote:
| And Fox News sweeps it again!
| dsimms wrote:
| One day a chicken will finally win, which will be a pullet
| surprise...
|
| But seriously, congratulations to the winners!
| ArjA wrote:
| The press gets a bad name a lot of the time, especially by those
| who are in positions of power and who are subject to the press,
| but the reality is that a lot of the press and many journalists
| do incredible work that shed light on various stories that might
| go unnoticed if it was not for journalism and the press.
| Obviously there are bad actors that degrade what the press does
| or stands and those actors usually are louder and get put in the
| spotlight but there are so many incredible journalists that
| really do uphold the intended role of the press; to inform,
| criticize, and stimulate debate. I'm glad that parts of the
| press, those who really do hold up journalistic integrity and
| care about their work/role, are recognized especially in the
| current state of the world where the press, even good actors, are
| often blamed or criticized for doing their job and are somehow
| framed as the "bad guy."
| pm90 wrote:
| Seriously, so much this. You only realize how valuable good
| journalism is when you don't have it, as is unfortunately very
| common in most parts of the world.
|
| Journalists play an extremely important role in keeping a check
| on power and as such are critical to the health of a democracy.
| The current US presidents violent rhetoric against the press
| should make people a lot angrier than it has so far; without a
| good, unbiased press there is simply no way to have an honest
| conversation about the most important problems that a country
| faces and the different plans by which to address them (as is
| becoming very clear by the botched response to the Coronavirus
| pandemic).
| umvi wrote:
| > The current US presidents violent rhetoric against the
| press should make people a lot angrier than it has so far
|
| It would make me a lot angrier if the most popular news
| outlets were indeed "good, unbiased press" and not spin
| doctors and propaganda distributors for [insert political
| machine].
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Both/and, not either/or. We should be angry at the
| president's violent rhetoric toward the press, _and_ we
| should be angry at the press 's bias and spin.
| nopriorarrests wrote:
| Well, I think that what basically happens now? Half of
| the nation angry at president rhetoric, and half of the
| country angry at press bias.
|
| Just different halves, but being angry at many things at
| once is hard, mentally. But you have your wish granted,
| more or less. Everyone is angry :)
| orsenthil wrote:
| The reliable media often back up the claims with resources,
| motivations and you have the history to verify.
|
| If a person makes a blanket statement like "press is
| biased" or "is a spin-doctor" for X, we need to ignore that
| move past it.
|
| We tend to identify reliable sources over time, and there
| are plenty of reputed, reliable journalists and newspapers
| in the world. Just like reliable politicians. Kudos to
| them.
| jonhohle wrote:
| Very much this. What most people consider "the press", the
| main stream media, has converted almost completely to
| infotainment, opinion, and propaganda for vested interests.
|
| John Gruber (of Daring Fireball, Mardkown fame, etc.)
| coined the term "claim chowder" and started keeping a list
| of dubious tech reporting. I've been keeping a mental list
| myself and its almost painful how often a highly circulated
| story obviously will have a shelf life of weeks or days
| before being completely invalidated. As long as it makes it
| through the spin cycle, though, I suppose it doesn't matter
| to show runners, editors, and others pushing the narrative.
|
| When news outlets run significantly fabricated stories
| (sometimes for months or years) and then run a genuine
| story how can they be believed? When news outlets never
| issue retractions, corrections, or apologies for misleading
| the public, how can they be trusted. When they actively
| attempt to remove or change content from their public
| archives in order to put themselves on the right side of
| history or direct the way history is being made, how can
| they be treated as protectors of freedom against tyranny.
| When they destroy the lives of who accidentally entered
| their crosshairs to sell ad space, how can they be
| considered good.
| untog wrote:
| You're playing into his game as soon as you start talking
| about "the media".
|
| There is no one "the media". The journalism produced by
| cable news opinion segments is not the same as that
| produced by national print outlets, which is also not the
| same as a local newspaper. Equating them all is something
| Trump and his friends would very much like you to do.
| roenxi wrote:
| If you change the article URL from 2020 to 2018 and search
| for "Trump" you can see the Pulitzer they handed out for
| "deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public
| interest that dramatically furthered the nation's
| understanding of Russian interference in the 2016
| presidential election". In 2020 that has toned down to a
| Pulitzer for "skewers the personalities and policies" or
| "illuminates the personal impact [of his anti-immigrant
| policies]".
|
| The quality of the hard-hitting journalism seems to be
| winding back, maybe Trump wore them down?
| seibelj wrote:
| The 1619 project is at its core flawed
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project#Critical_resp...
|
| The American Revolution was simply not about protecting slavery.
| You can't say the birth of America was a racist endeavor - it's
| factually incorrect. This is historical revisionism.
| untog wrote:
| A more correct way of summarising the link you provided is that
| _some historians contend_ the 1619 Project is at its core
| flawed, and it has been criticised by many prominent
| conservatives.
|
| It's a subject of much debate both in and out of academic
| circles.
| haberman wrote:
| > and it has been criticised by many prominent conservatives.
|
| ...and Socialists:
|
| "Both Wood's and McPherson's remarks were published by the
| World Socialist Website, a left-wing, socialist website,
| which claims that the 1619 project's "aim is to create a
| historical narrative that legitimizes the effort of the
| Democratic Party to construct an electoral coalition based on
| the prioritizing of personal 'identities'--i.e., gender,
| sexual preference, ethnicity, and, above all, race."[41] The
| site has also published interviews on the project with
| historians Victoria Bynum[42] and James Oakes,[43] and
| promoted a lecture series critiquing the project's alleged
| "racialist falsification of American and world history."[41]"
| gxqoz wrote:
| I felt that Greg Grandin's Myth of the Frontier was actually the
| second-best counter-narrative to the standard accounts of
| American relations with its neighbors published in 2019. The most
| interesting was How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/books/review-how-to-hide-...
|
| One of the more interesting sections for the Hacker News crowd is
| how technological advancements in World War II like artificial
| rubber and international standards allowed the US to cede the
| huge amount of land it directly controlled after the war (which
| is not to say that US influence completely disappeared in these
| places).
| danso wrote:
| At least a couple of this year's winners have been previously
| discussed on HN:
|
| via Seattle Times:
|
| - How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control
| system https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19421612
|
| - Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability
| to shut off MCAS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19887177
|
| And via ProPublica:
|
| - Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19094762
|
| - Navy's flawed technology set the USS John McCain up for
| disaster: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21844963
|
| Both were awarded the prize in National Reporting (it's not
| typical for 2 different projects to get the same award the same
| year): https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/209
| _hardwaregeek wrote:
| Ben Taub has been putting out some fantastic work, especially for
| someone so young. His article on Iraq's post ISIS policies was
| incredibly sad but very informative.
| ConanRus wrote:
| What a remarkable list of SJW activity. Well done, liberals.
| generationP wrote:
| I wouldn't exactly call covering Catherine Pugh's corruption
| SJW activity. There seems to be a gradient among the Pulitzers
| running between the more concrete and local categories
| (investigative, news) and the more philosophical and big-
| picturey ones (commentary, criticism). The latter are a
| hopeless left-wing circlejerk (1619 project lol); the former
| are solid and, from what I'm seeing, generally well-deserved.
| blhack wrote:
| How could you design a fitness function for news to ensure that
| it was accurate?
|
| Papers like The Financial Times have an obvious one: people are
| using these to inform themselves about business and investment.
| If FT was giving inaccurate data, it would have an obvious cost
| to the people who read it.
|
| But for papers like the NYT, what is the incentive to accurately
| report the news? It seems like by inaccurately reporting things,
| they'll make more money. This is a problem. How would you fix it?
| abc_lisper wrote:
| Does anyone know why Barry Blitt's recognition is now under
| contention?
|
| https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/barry-blitt-contributor-new...
| e15ctr0n wrote:
| _Contention_ here means as a contender for the prize. See the
| second meaning here:
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/contention
|
| _Moved by the board_ means that the board nominated it; not
| submitted by the author / publisher.
| abc_lisper wrote:
| Got it.. thanks!
| favorited wrote:
| My interpretation was that the board thought he should be
| considered, so they added him to the pool themselves even
| though he hadn't been nominated.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I'm not sure.
|
| Very surprised that Pat Bagley wasn't even nominated, his
| cartoons have been all over the place in the last year,
| particularly on social media. Which I find particularly
| interesting as he isn't from a major market like CA or NY (he's
| published in a Colorado newspaper I believe).
| orsenthil wrote:
| The page simply says- " (Moved into contention by the Board.) "
| - But does not state any reason.
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(page generated 2020-05-04 23:00 UTC)