Pulitzer Prize-Winning Articles Assailed : Board Is Asked to Reconsider Award to Philadelphia Inquirer

The editor of the National Journal magazine asked the Pulitzer Prize Board on Wednesday to reconsider its award to the Philadelphia Inquirer for national reporting, saying the articles that won the prize “plow no new journalistic ground.”

Inquirer Managing Editor Gene Foreman called the complaint an “unfair attack” on reporter Tim Weiner, who won the award for a series on the Defense Department’s secret budget. He said Weiner began working on his stories before the National Journal published a detailed report on the same subject by reporter David C. Morrison.

Pulitzer board secretary Robert Christopher said he had been informed of the complaint but had not read a letter from National Journal Editor Richard Frank requesting board action. “Clearly, any allegation of this kind, any complaint of this kind would be considered,” Christopher said.

Followed Report by Year

Frank said in his letter that Weiner’s series, published in February, 1987, followed by nearly a year Morrison’s report in the weekly publication. The National Journal has a circulation of 5,000, primarily among Washington officials and journalists. It reports in depth on government.

Weiner’s story “can only be read as a blatant and egregious case of building a news story according to someone else’s blueprint: in this case, the National Journal’s March 1, 1986, cover story, ‘The Pentagon’s Black Budget,’ ” Frank wrote.

“We make no accusation of plagiarism, but by no account does the Philadelphia Inquirer series deserve a Pulitzer because Weiner’s reporting on the size and composition of the black budget plows no new journalistic ground,” he said.

Frank said several other news organizations also had earlier written about the money used to underwrite secret defense research and unpublicized aspects of the arms buildup. He enclosed copies of the Journal and Inquirer stories, along with a Washington Post article on preparations for World War IV, which he said Weiner “substantially replicates” in one of his reports.

Confident of New Evaluation

“We are confident that the board, armed with these facts, will reconsider its awarding of the prize to the Weiner series,” the letter said.

Frank said the Journal’s Morrison in 1985 became the first to use Pentagon documents to determine the size of the “black budget.” At the time, Morrison was a senior research analyst at the Center for Defense Information, an independent think tank. He later joined the Journal.

Morrison, interviewed at the Journal office, said he thought Weiner did “an amazingly poor job in developing the story, considering the amount of time he had.” He said Pulitzers should be awarded for ground-breaking stories, adding: “I’m sorry they failed to do this.”

Foreman, speaking for the Inquirer, said: “We just have to conclude that it’s an unfair attack on Tim’s reporting.” He said both stories quote some of the same sources because there are few sources available on the matter.

More Than 100 Interviews

Weiner said in a telephone interview that he conducted more than 100 interviews around the country and was “knee-deep in this before I saw David’s work.”

He called the accusations “false and unfair to me and my newspaper and to my editors.”

“I think David Morrison is a terrific reporter, and he did fine work on this subject. But he’s making false accusations, and it’s a false controversy that’s going to ultimately hurt journalism,” he said.

“I don’t write stories to win prizes, and I wrote these to bring an important public policy issue to people’s attention,” he said.

Jonathan Neumann, Inquirer editor for investigative projects, said the Inquirer laid the groundwork for the “black budget” story even before Weiner became involved. He said the story brought forth significant new details.

Neumann said interviews were conducted and Weiner was set up for a months-long reporting effort long before either he or Weiner saw Morrison’s work.