For some newspapers, this week’s Pulitzer Prizes were about not winning. Forget the cigars and joyous champagne celebrations. Instead, these newsrooms were decidedly sober, as staffers — heads shaking quietly — struggled even harder than usual with the day’s assignments.
Nowhere was the numbness more apparent Monday than at the Providence Journal, which some Pulitzer-watchers believed had the strongest of the three entries picked weeks ago by the seven public service jurors. The jury had recognized the Rhode Island newspaper for its nearly year-long work detailing the causes and consequences of last February’s horrific Station Nightclub fire, which “killed 100 people and spread anguish across America’s smallest state.” The centerpiece of the Journal‘s efforts — and of its Pulitzer public-service entry — was December’s striking and emotional revisitation of the blaze in the eight-part series “Forged by Fire.”
With an hour to go until the 3 p.m. Pulitzer announcements, forlorn executive editor Joel Rawson leafed through a bound volume of his paper’s fire stories with me. Rawson, who had shepherded the Journal‘s coverage, ticked off the extraordinary combination of investigative work and narrative writing, along with the reforms to fire codes it had fostered. “This story on the 100th victim was truly wonderful,” he said sadly. “One of the best pieces of writing I’ve seen.”
The Journal had been far ahead of fire officials in determining the exact level of overcrowding in the club, and establishing that people in the club had only 102 seconds to make their escape before becoming victims. The paper designed elaborate computer simulations, using newsfilm that had been taken inside as the nightclub caught fire, and converting it into a digital program with which survivor accounts and other information were coordinated into a vivid recreation of events. Regulatory changes and a review and revised fire codes had resulted. (No longer would Rhode Island buildings be able to avoid sprinkler systems through grandfathering provisions.) “With public service you’re supposed to demonstrate the full use of the paper’s resources,” Rawson said. “We certainly did that.”
Over the weekend, the Journal brass had gotten word from someone in the know that The New York Times, not the Journal, would win the public service Gold Medal, for David Barstow and Lowell Bergman’s workplace-safety series.
From Rawson’s point of view, the Times had come out of nowhere. The Barstow-Bergman entry had appeared on lists as a finalist in investigative reporting, not public service. The Times had, in fact, been eliminated by the public-service jury. But the Pulitzer board, with its final authority, had chosen to restore the series to the category, and name it the winner. The other two disappointed public-service finalists: the Louisville Courier-Journal for stories on flaws in the state’s criminal justice system, and the Seattle Times, for Christine Willmsen and Maureen O’Hagan’s stories revealing unpunished sexual misconduct by male coaches.
There are more finalists than winners each year, of course — typically, twice as many. The jurors in each category generally forward three favored entries to the board, sometimes finding ways to hint which one they liked most. This year, the number of finalist entries, 30, was greater than usual. Not only did the board pass over the public-service jury’s picks, it chose to declare no winner at all in one of the 14 journalism categories. For the first time since the category was created for the 1979 Pulitzers, the coveted feature writing category produced only the three finalists, and no Pulitzer Prize.
Andrew Barnes: “There were several people on the board who wanted us to explain more about our decision (on the feature finalists). … But it isn’t useful to have it be out in the press what our thinking was about this.”Feature writers sharing the Providence Journal‘s empty feeling: the Boston Globe‘s Patricia Wen, nominated for a story on efforts by states to terminate parental rights; The Washington Post‘s Anne Hull and Tamara Jones, finalists for studies of wounded soldiers returning from Iraq, and Los Angeles Times‘s Robert Lee Hotz, who the jury said had “written a lucid story on the efforts to unravel the mystery of why the Columbia space shuttle fell from the sky.”
Board members don’t explain why they act the way they do, except in broad strokes. Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes for Columbia University, commented simply that among the feature entries, “after extensive discussion on that category, with the board confining itself to the three finalists, no entry received a majority” in the board’s own vote. And he explained that such decisions not to make an award are “unusual but not unheard-of,” having occurred more than 50 times over the 87-year history of the prizes, including 25 times in journalism categories. Board member Andrew Barnes, chairman and chief executive of the St. Petersburg Times, said “there were several people on the board who wanted us to explain more about our decision” on the feature finalists. “But it isn’t useful to have it be out in the press what our thinking was about this.”
Some journalists suggest that the feature-writing decision may express the board’s displeasure with the proliferation of narrative writing, thin on attribution. But some who attended the board session caution against this interpretation. “The board doesn’t try to set standards for journalism,” according to one member who asked not to be quoted by name. Topics that do come up include reporting quality, balance, fairness, and pace, said the member — and the debate over narrative style would be only one element. “I wouldn’t try to find one single message in all of this,” this member said. “Of course there’s tension between narrative writing and more-attributed writing and things like anonymous sources. Whatever’s out there in journalism finds its way into the board meeting some way or another.”
Why the board passed over the public service finalists may also defy easy explanation. Some saw The New York Times series as perhaps a groundbreaking choice for the public service category, in which the Boston Globe was honored last year for its stories on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests. The powerful 2003 Times work encompassed by “When Workers Die” and “Dangerous Business” represented a collaboration with the Public Broadcasting System’s Frontline and with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
But those who think it a landmark choice may be off-base, some board insiders have suggested. Barnes said that “The New York Times went to some lengths to explain to us that all the stories were reported to The New York Times‘s standards.” And the board didn’t review the related broadcast material. Another board insider suggested, meanwhile, that dealing with entries in which print and broadcast reporting converge is still an issue that hasn’t been faced by the Pulitzers. “It was clear that the Times entry was a newsroom-driven project,” this person said. “I don’t know what would happen if you had a real joint project. I’m not sure how we’d handle it.”
Robert Rosenthal: “In public service, you look for results, of course, and all our finalists had results … If you had polled the group, there was a lot of parity. There were strong advocates for each candidate.”Reached the evening the Pulitzers were announced, public-service juror Robert J. Rosenthal, the San Francisco Chronicle‘s managing editor, said his panel had considered that the Times entry was “tied in with Frontline and the CBC.” But the Times was only eliminated from the public-service finalists, he said, after a discussion between juries, in which it was determined that the work would be a finalist in investigative reporting.
“In public service, you look for results, of course, and all our finalists had results,” Rosenthal said. He didn’t have a clear favorite among the three, and neither did the public-service jury as a whole, he added. “If you had polled the group, there was a lot of parity. There were strong advocates for each candidate.” In discussions about the Providence Journal, Rosenthal said it was agreed that “it not only informed people, but it took the whole state through the mourning and grief process. And there was some remarkable narrative in it.”
How do jurors feel about having all three finalist choices passed over? “As a juror, I don’t take it personally,” said Rosenthal. “I haven’t spoken to the other jurors, but we’ve been around long enough to know that strange things happen with the Pulitzers.” Indeed, in his days with the Philadelphia Inquirer, that paper had been on the receiving end of some category shuffling that took the paper out of contention. “The board just does what it wants,” he said the evening of the Pulitzer announcement.
Back at the Providence Journal at Pulitzer time, Rawson silently scrolled through the wire-service computer screen for winners. “I’m really proud of our guys, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” he told me. “We’ll be a footnote to the year The New York Times won.” Noting that no feature-writing prize was awarded, Rawson offered his opinion: “I’ve got a pretty good story about a fire that might work for that.”
Meanwhile, two staffers walked by with unlit cigars in their mouths. “We’re going to smoke them anyway,” said one weakly.
Roy Harris is senior editor of Boston-based CFO magazine, part of The Economist Group. A former Wall Street Journal reporter, he is a student of the public-service Pulitzer Prizes, and also teaches a journalism class at Emerson College.
CORRECTION: The number of finalists selected by Pulitzer jurors was misstated in an earlier version of this article.
