Times’ Jim Murray Wins Pulitzer for Commentary

Jim Murray, veteran sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary on Thursday, while in a rare action, twin gold medals for public service were given to the Philadelphia Inquirer and to the Washington (N.C.) Daily News.

August Wilson, one of the nation’s leading black playwrights and a previous Pulitzer recipient, won the drama award for his play “The Piano Lesson.” In the fiction category, Oscar Hijuelos received the Pulitzer Prize for his book “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love,” edging out E.L. Doctorow”s book “Billy Bathgate.”

The Pulitzer Prize for distinguished musical composition was awarded to Mel Powell for “Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra,” which had its premiere in January by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Powell, a native New Yorker, has been a resident of Los Angeles for the past two decades.

He heads the composition faculty at California Institute of the Arts and is holder of the Roy E. Disney chair in musical composition.

The Inquirer won its medal for reporting by Gilbert M. Gaul, disclosing how the American blood industry runs with little governmental regulation or supervision.

The Washington (N.C.) Daily News received its public service Pulitzer for revealing that its city’s water supply was contaminated with carcinogens, a problem that local government had neither disclosed nor corrected over a period of eight years. It was the first time in 23 years that two public service gold medals were given.

Murray, 70, who has been named America’s best sports writer 14 times by the National Assn. of Sportscasters and Sportswriters, received his first Pulitzer Prize. He began his career with the Los Angeles Times in 1961 after serving as West Coast editor for Sports Illustrated.

“It is the Academy Award of our business. It’s something you don’t even think about,” he said. “I never thought I would get a Pulitzer Prize. . . . I always thought you had to bring down a government or expose major graft or give advice to prime ministers. Correctly quoting Tommy Lasorda shouldn’t merit a Pulitzer Prize. I never really expected it. I am very pleased and happy to have won it.”

Altogether, Columbia University awarded 15 prizes in journalism and seven in the arts. Each award carried with it a $3,000 prize, except the award for public service in journalism, which is a gold medal. The Pulitzer Prize Board, often criticized in previous years for giving a disproportionate share of awards to Eastern newspapers, gave 7 of the journalism awards this year to Western newspapers. Coverage of two major disasters--the San Francisco Bay Area earthquake and the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill--earned three Pulitzers.

The entire staff of the San Jose Mercury News won the general news reporting prize for its work on the quake and its aftermath, while the Oakland Tribune won the spot news photography prize for its quake pictures--including the photograph at right taken by Michael Macor of rescuers removing a victim from the rubble of the collapsed Nimitz Freeway.

The Seattle Times won the national reporting prize for its coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its aftermath. Reporters cited were Ross Anderson, Bill Dietrich, Mary Ann Gwinn and Eric Nalder.

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn of the New York Times, a husband-and-wife team, won the international reporting prize for the paper’s coverage of China’s mass movement toward democracy last spring and the subsequent repression.

Lou Kilzer and Chris Ison of the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis won the investigative reporting prize for exposing a network of local citizens and members of the St. Paul Fire Department who profited from fires, including some described by the fire department as being of suspicious origin.

David A. Vise and Steve Coll of the Washington Post won the explanatory journalism prize for stories scrutinizing the Securities and Exchange Commission and the way it had been affected by its former chairman, John S. R. Shad.

The specialized reporting prize went to Tamar Stieber of the Albuquerque Journal. The Pulitzer board cited her for “persistent reporting” in linking a rare blood disorder to the over-the-counter dietary supplement L-tryptophan. The articles were followed by a national recall of the product.

Also nominated as a finalist in the category was Claire Spiegel of the Los Angeles Times for investigation of mismanagement and abuses at the Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles. Her stories led to reforms at the hospital. The other finalist was Jim Dwyer of New York Newsday for his coverage of the New York City subway system.

The feature writing prize was given to Dave Curtin of the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph for what the Pulitzer jurors called “a gripping account of a family’s struggle to recover after its members were severely burned in an explosion at their home.”

David C. Turnley of the Detroit Free Press won the feature photography prize for photographs of the political uprisings in China and Eastern Europe.

The criticism prize was given to Allan Temko of the San Francisco Chronicle for his articles on architecture, while Thomas J. Hylton of

the Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury won for editorials about a local bond issue for the preservation of farmland and other open spaces in rural Pennsylvania.

Tom Toles of the Buffalo News won the editorial cartooning prize for a year’s work, exemplified by a cartoon about the First Amendment. The cartoon pictured the White House and Capitol with language citing various threats to the amendment.

The Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction was given to Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson for their work “And Their Children After Them.” The book explores the lives of 128 descendants of Alabama sharecroppers portrayed by writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans in a book they collaborated on in 1941.

Maharidge is a reporter for the Sacramento Bee and Williamson is a photographer for the same newspaper. They are collaborating on another book about hobos who ride the railroads.

Sebastian de Grazia, author of “Machiavelli in Hell,” won the prize for biography, and the history prize went to Stanley Karnow for “In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines.” A professor of political philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey, De Grazia also has worked as a director of research at the Twentieth Century Fund. A veteran journalist, Karnow has worked for Time magazine, the Washington Post and the New Republic magazine.

The prize for poetry went to Charles Simic for “The World Doesn’t End,” his 12th volume of poems. Simic, born in Yugoslavia, was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1983. His poems have been translated into 11 languages and have appeared in magazines including the New Yorker, The Nation, Esquire, the Atlantic and the Paris Review.

Wilson, the winner of the drama prize, had previously won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1987 for his play “Fences,” the story of a black ballplayer and his relationship with his son.

His latest play, “The Piano Lesson,” which opens on Broadway on Monday, deals with a brother and sister at loggerheads over what to do with the ancestral piano they jointly own.

In her review when “The Piano Lesson” played at the James A. Doolittle Theater, Times theater writer Sylvie Drake praised the production as “not a play you just watch.”

“It insists that you listen to it and listen carefully,” Drake wrote. “It is filled with subplot--rich tangential stories that flow freely into the main current, nurturing ancient cultural and metaphysical roots.”

Wilson’s latest play topped two other finalists in the drama category--Maria Irene Fornes’ “And What of the Night?” and “Love Letters” by A.R. Gurney.

Hijuelos’ winning, street-smart work of fiction “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love,” is largely set in New York City in the early 1950s and is the story of the immigrant experience, of lost opportunities and hopes. It is a colorfully written story of two brothers who realize a lifelong dream of playing in Ricky Ricardo’s band on the “I Love Lucy” show. But the experience proves to be a fleeting moment of triumph, and the book chronicles their growing disillusionment and unhappiness back in the real world.

Announcement of the awards set off celebrations around the country.

“I will say we haven’t had this much excitement in this town since the Union cavalry and the Confederate cavalry chased each other up Main Street in 1862, and there’s been nothing like that since,” said Bill Coughlin, the Washington Daily News’ executive editor.

They broke out the champagne at the Philadelphia Inquirer after the paper won it’s Pulitzer.

“I feel great. It is a terrific honor,” said reporter Gaul. “The paper showed an incredible amount of courage to allow me to spend a year and a half on the story and to report on a subject that is of great importance to everyone that we don’t often think about--blood.”

Gaul, 38, had previously won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1979. The blood series, which found that the industry is little regulated, was inspired by his questions about what happened to the blood he donated four times a year.

THE 1990 PULITZER PRIZE WINNERS

These winners of the Pulitzer Prize for 1990 were announced Thursday in New York City.

JOURNALISM AWARDS

Public Service --Gilbert M. Gaul, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington (N.C.) Daily News

General News Reporting --Staff of the San Jose Mercury News

Investigative Reporting --Lou Kilzer, Chris Ison, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune

Explanatory Journalism --David A. Vise, Steve Coll, the Washington Post

Specialized Reporting --Tamar Stieber, the Albuquerque Journal

National Reporting --Ross Anderson, Bill Dietrich, Mary Ann Gwinn, Eric Nalder, the Seattle Times

International Reporting --Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, the New York Times

Feature Writing --David Curtin, the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph

Criticism --Allan Temko, the San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial Writing --Thomas J. Hylton, the Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury

Commentary --Jim Murray, the Los Angeles Times

Editorial Cartooning --Tom Toles, the Buffalo News

Spot News Photography --Photo staff of the Oakland Tribune

Feature Photography --David C. Turnley, the Detroit Free Press

THE ARTS

Fiction --”The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love,” Oscar Hijuelos

Drama --”The Piano Lesson,” August Wilson

History --”In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines,” Stanley Karnow

Biography --”Machiavelli in Hell,” Sebastian de Grazia

Poetry --”The World Doesn’t End,” Charles Simic

General Nonfiction --”And Their Children After Them,” Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson

Music --”Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra,” Mel Powell

BONS MOTS FROM MURRAY: Jim Murray looks at the world a line or so at a time. Here are some of those lines. C1

COLLEAGUE’S KUDOS: Writing behind Murray is like trying to be Gehrig behind Ruth, Mike Downey says. C1