There’s No Way to Predict Direction of Pulitzer Winds

A guy I worked with a couple of years ago won a Pulitzer Prize this week for his reporting. He is a very good reporter. He is also a fine writer. He is a splendid example of everything that can be rewarding about a career in professional journalism.

He is 27.

Twenty-seven! I’ve got paper clips in my desk that are 27. My briefcase is older than that. When I was 27, the only way I would have won a Pulitzer Prize was if they had a category for most immature writer. I stood a better chance of winning a blue ribbon at a state fair in a hog-calling contest.

An older fellow I know also won a Pulitzer this week, for photography. He is a superb shutterbug. He is also a seasoned journalist. In no way was he simply lucky in becoming a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Except it’s his second.

How about that--two Pulitzers in one lifetime? I guess one of his pictures must be worth 2,000 words by now. I can’t even get a Polaroid at a picnic to develop, and this guy’s got a couple of Pulitzers already? Well, it just shows you what a person with a camera can do without having to chase a British princess’ car down a street.

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There are a number of things I love about the Pulitzer Prizes, besides the fact that very few of them are ever stolen in transit and later found in a Los Angeles trash bin.

For one thing, the Pulitzer is an equal-opportunity prize.

There’s one for drama, for fiction, for history, for biography, for poetry, for music, for practically anything and everything, except perhaps for best binding (leather division) and best use of a copying machine at Kinko’s.

I traditionally am nominated in every category, once finishing 97th in the fiction competition for a story I wrote about the Chicago Cubs having a good team.

The prizes are given out by Columbia University, which usually gives out three to the Washington Post, three to the New York Times and throws the rest up for grabs, like raw meat in a lion’s cage.

It was hardly a shock that the Washington Post won three more Pulitzers this week. The real challenge for the Post will come during the next four years, when every reporter on the paper will be faced with the virtually impossible task of getting Al Gore or George W. Bush to say something interesting.

I concede that the Post has many distinguished writers, such as David Broder, who attended the same high school I did (and clearly had a better journalism teacher), and George Will, who has written a lot more about the Cubs than I ever have. If anybody can make Gore or Bush less bland, they can.

What did astound many in the journalism biz was that the New York Times won no Pulitzers, for the first time since 1985. What a shocker. Usually all the New York Times has to do is burp, and somebody will hand it a prize for best gas.

There is a separate Pulitzer category for cartooning, for editorial writing and for various kinds of news and feature writing, but none for sports writing. So when a sports columnist wins a Pulitzer, he or she has to beat out the Broders, Wills and Maureen Dowds of the world in the all-encompassing commentary category. It’s like making Earl Scheib compete against David Hockney in a painting contest.

At one point, going into the ‘90s, only three sports columnists since 1917 had ever won a Pulitzer Prize . . . one from the New York Times, one from the New York Times and, let’s see, one from the New York Times.

I was delighted several years ago when a former New York sportswriter I knew won a Pulitzer after switching to news. He died of cancer a few months later, still in his early 40s.

You never know who’s going to win, or when. Jim Murray, the witty and wise L.A. sportswriter, didn’t win his Pulitzer until quite late in a long career. But now a lad Jim and I once worked with has won one at 27.

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His name is George Dohrmann--rhymes with George Foreman--and he won for helping to expose academic fraud at the University of Minnesota, where a woman in a counseling office confessed to doing term papers and taking exams for student-athletes.

In other words, George revealed Minnesota to be the greatest school in the world. Homework is OK as long as a school does it for you.

Seriously, I am very happy for George and for his editors in St. Paul, Minn., all of whom will probably be recognized soon by Gov. Jesse Ventura with either a pat on the back or an elbow to the skull.

Best of all, now I know exactly how to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning story. Get somebody else to write it for me.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com