Want a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how Pulitzer Prize-winning stories come together, what makes them special, and how they become award-winning?
Well, here’s a podcast for you.
Starting Monday, the Pulitzer Prizes will launch a six-episode series called “Pulitzer on the Road.” It will release a new episode each week and will feature 2023 winners in Journalism and Books in conversations with members of the Pulitzer Board.
Guests over the course of the series include Fiction winners Barbara Kingsolver and Hernan Diaz, Explanatory Reporting winner Caitlin Dickerson of The Atlantic, Local Reporting winners John Archibald and Ashley Remkus from AL.com, and Public Service named contributor Mstyslav Chernov of the team at The Associated Press.
“‘Pulitzer on the Road’ is an effort to offer audiences insights into how these works are produced and what makes them prize-worthy,” Pulitzer Prize administrator Marjorie Miller said. “We want to show how journalism and the arts play important roles in democracy.”
It sounds like a podcast of interest to both those inside and outside of journalism.
The podcast is produced and hosted by Pulitzer Board member Nicole Carroll, who is a professor of practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The six episodes also feature Pulitzer Board members Neil Brown, president of the Poynter Institute; Boston Globe editor Nancy Barnes; Ginger Thompson, ProPublica’s chief of correspondents; University of California, Los Angeles historian Kelly Lytle Hernández; Emily Ramshaw, chief executive officer of The 19th; and author Viet Thanh Nguyen of the University of Southern California.
Brown told me, “The podcasts allow us to hear from the reporters on a more personal level about the real-life ways they built relationships with sources and subjects. The journalists must navigate roadblocks and frustrations, and there is always a measure of luck needed to unlock difficult truths. Behind the lofty recognition that comes with a Pulitzer Prize, we gain a bit of lively insight about the long road it takes to get there.”
As an example, in Monday’s first episode, Archibald talks to Brown about how the AL.com team that won the Local Reporting prize uncovered police corruption in Brookside, Alabama. The news organization reported how officers preyed on residents to increase revenue by 640% in two years, largely by pulling over drivers on misdemeanor charges and then confiscating cars to get fines and fees.
In future episodes, Dickerson will talk about the evolution of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy of taking children from immigrant parents at the board, and Chernov will discuss how he and his team were the last international journalists in Mariupol, Ukraine, when the Russians invaded the country.
This is a rare insight into how reporters do their jobs.
Carroll said in a statement, “I hope listeners come away feeling the impact of this work.”
Other episodes look into prizes in the Books category. Jefferson Cowie, who won for History, travels to Eufaula, Alabama, to look at the consequences of white supremacy. And the two winners in the Fiction category each get their own episode. Diaz talks about his novel, “Trust,” while Kingsolver talks about her book about coming of age in Appalachia, “Demon Copperhead.”
The series will run weekly through April 29 — and that sets up for the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes, which will be announced on May 6.
And now on to media news, tidbits and interesting links for your weekend review …
- Highly recommend this poignant story in The Atlantic from David Frum: “Miranda’s Last Gift. When our daughter died suddenly, she left us with grief, memories — and Ringo.”
- CNBC’s Alex Sherman does a deep dive into ESPN’s future with a 25-minute documentary, which you can find here: “ESPN’s model is eroding. Insiders are split on the plan to return it to dominance.”
- NBC News’ Daniel Arkin with “Crime stories drove readers to GoFundMe campaigns, only the victims didn’t exist.”
- The Hollywood Reporter’s Katie Kilkenny with “Condé Nast Plans More Layoffs, Files Charge Against Union as Staffers March to Executive Offices.”
- Interesting clip of CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz tracking down the North Carolina Republicans’ nominee to run the state’s public school system — the same woman who has had online posts calling for former President Barack Obama and then-President-elect Joe Biden to be executed.
- The Los Angeles Times’ Ruben Vives and Doug Smith (with photography from Brian Van Der Brug) with “Children on Skid Row: Four migrant families form a tenuous community.”
- 404 Media’s Jason Koebler with “Deadspin Is Becoming a Gambling Referral Site.”
- NPR TV critic Eric Deggans, writing for the new site LateNighter, with “The Daily Show’s Dulcé Sloan Gets Real About Diversity In Late Night.”
- The latest column from NPR public editor (and my Poynter colleague) Kelly McBride: “Dark Horses. How should journalists cover outlier candidates?”
- M. Emmet Walsh died this week at the age of 88. The venerable actor is best known for roles in “The Jerk,” “Blood Simple,” and “Blade Runner.” But for me, he will always be remembered for playing a reporter — the sportswriter, Dickie Dunn, in the sports movie classic, “Slap Shot.” As Dunn, Walsh captured the spirit of the thing. (If you know, you know.) Here’s a good remembrance of Walsh from The Hollywood Reporter’s Chris Koseluk.
More resources for journalists
- Delve more deeply into your editing skills with Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing. Start anytime.
- Essential Skills for Rising Newsroom Leaders (Seminar) (May) — Apply by March 26.
- Poynter Producer Project (Seminar) (June 4-Sept. 10) — Apply by April 14.
- Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative (2024-25) (Fellowship for public media journalists) — Sept. 30, 2024-April 13, 2025. Apply by April 22.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here.
