Charlotte Observer Tops Pulitzer List for PTL Coverage

The Charlotte Observer won two Pulitzer Prizes Thursday, including the 1988 award for public service for exposing misuse of funds by Jim and Tammy Bakker’s PTL television ministry. Judges said the newspaper persevered despite a massive campaign by the religious group to discredit it.

Two other newspapers--the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald--also won two Pulitzer Prizes each.

The 1988 prize for distinguished fiction went to Toni Morrison for her novel “Beloved,” a hallucinatory and wrenching account of the experience of slavery. The prize for best play went to Alfred Uhry’s “Driving Miss Daisy,” which tells the tale of a white woman and her black chauffeur over a quarter of a century.

After Morrison’s novel failed to win two of the year’s other major literary prizes, 48 prominent black writers and critics lobbied for her Pulitzer in a letter to the New York Times Book Review.

But Roger Wilkins, chairman of the Pulitzer Prize Board, which considers the recommendations of individual juries, said the letter did not “influence our decision at all.”

“Toni Morrison won this prize the old fashioned way, the way the other fiction writers have the eight years I have been sitting on this jury,” Wilkins said. “We thought it was the best book.”

Happy Merits ‘Surfaced’

In a telephone interview, Morrison said: “I am terribly happy that the merits of the book surfaced, that things outside the book did not interfere with the judgment of the committee. It was too upsetting to have my work considered as an affirmative action award.”

In addition to winning the gold medal for public service, the Charlotte Observer shared its other Pulitzer with the Atlanta Constitution for editorial cartoons by Doug Marlette. Marlette worked at the Observer for 15 years before joining the Constitution in March, 1987.

Dave Barry won one of the Miami Herald’s two prizes for distinguished commentary. The judges cited “his consistently effective use of humor . . . for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns.”

Michel duCille of the Herald won the feature photography prize for pictures portraying the decay and rehabilitation of a housing project overrun by drugs.

The Pulitzer for specialized reporting went to Walt Bogdanich of the Wall Street Journal for a series of articles about faulty testing by American medical laboratories.

Reporters Share Prize

Daniel Hertzberg and James B. Stewart of the Journal received the prize for explanatory journalism for stories about Martin A. Siegel, an investment banker who pleaded guilty to selling illegal insider information to stock speculator Ivan F. Boesky and for examining the critical day following the Oct. 19, 1987, stock market crash.

The prize for national reporting was awarded to Tim Weiner of the Philadelphia Inquirer for his series of stories about a secret Pentagon budget used to sponsor defense research and the arms buildup.

The international reporting prize went to Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times for his “balanced and informed coverage of Israel.” In 1983, Friedman shared the international reporting Pulitzer for his reports on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Two newspapers shared the general news reporting prize. The staff of the Montgomery Journal won for its investigation of Alabama’s unusually high infant mortality rate, while the staff of the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune gained a Pulitzer for an investigation revealing serious flaws in the Massachusetts prison furlough system.

The prize for distinguished investigating reporting was awarded to Dean Baquet, William Gaines and Ann Marie Lipinski of the Chicago Tribune for stories on “self-interest and waste that plagued Chicago’s City Council.”

AIDS Victim’s Story

Jacqui Banaszynski of the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch won the feature writing prize for her series about the life and death of an AIDS victim in a farm community.

The prize for distinguished criticism was awarded to Tom Shales, the Washington Post’s television columnist. Jane Healy of the Orlando Sentinel won the editorial writing prize for a series of editorials attacking overdevelopment in Florida’s Orange County.

For his pictures of little Jessica McClure being rescued from the well into which she had fallen, Scott Shaw of the Odessa, Tex., American was awarded the spot news photography prize.

Robert V. Bruce, professor emeritus at Boston University, was awarded the history prize for his book “The Launching of Modern American Science 1846-1876.” The Pulitzer board awarded the biography prize to David Herbert Donald for his work “Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe.” Donald is the Charles Warren Professor of American history and professor of American civilization at Harvard. In 1961, he also won the Pulitzer Prize for biography for his work “Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War.”

Poet Meredith Honored

The prize for poetry went to William Meredith, who has taught at Connecticut College since 1955, for his volume of verse “Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems.”

Richard Rhodes, who spent five years writing and researching his book, won in the nonfiction category for “The Making of The Atomic Bomb.” Rhodes also won a National Book Award last fall.

The prize for a distinguished musical composition was awarded to “12 New Etudes for Piano” by William Bolcom. The work had its first complete performance on March 30, 1987, at Temple University in Philadelphia. Bolcom is professor of composition at the University of Michigan.

With the exception of the gold medal for public service, the Pulitzer Prizes, presented by Columbia University, carry a $3,000 award.