At last. … The Pulitzer Prize Board has loosened up its rules a bit, allowing newspapers to submit more online material.
As explained in its press release, in the Public Service category, a
range of online material such as interactive graphics and databases
will be permitted (as has been the case since 1999). Other Pulitzer
categories now will allow online submissions to be limited to stories and
images.
More significantly, in the Breaking News Reporting and Breaking News
Photography categories, entries can consist entirely of material
published online. But in other categories, an entry may contain online
material, but it also must contain material published in the
newspaper’s print edition.
This is a step in the right direction, but frankly, I think the
Pulitzer Board is still behind the times. In an era when newspaper
print readership is declining, young people are getting their news
mostly from the Internet, and newspapers are transitioning to a point
where online and print presentation of content is more equal, the print
requirements are outdated. (Let me add here that this is my personal
opinion, and does not reflect a position by Poynter, publisher of this
blog and my employer.)
The new rules will apply to work produced by newspapers in 2005 for Pulitzer Prizes awarded in 2006.
