Yes, papers chase Pulitzers, but society benefits from it

I was leafing through a 24-page special section the Seattle Times published early this month on AIDS in Africa, and maybe because I had just finished reading the Hollywood Reporter moments earlier, I was struck by what seemed an interesting confluence of ambitions.

This is traditionally the time of year when the Hollywood studios release their most prestigious movies, even if only for a week, in only two cities -- New York and Los Angeles -- the bare minimum required before year’s end so they can qualify for Academy Award consideration. Somewhat less well-known to the general public, this is also the time of year when many newspapers across the country rush to get their most prestigious reporting projects into print so they can qualify for journalism’s equivalent of the Oscars -- the Pulitzer Prizes -- which also require a calendar-year release for eligibility.

Although the Oscar and the Pulitzer winners are announced in the spring -- March 23 and April 7, respectively, next year -- I don’t mean to extend this comparison too far. After all, a worldwide television audience estimated at 1 billion people watches the prime-time Oscars, and such superstars as Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin have served as hosts; the Pulitzer awards ceremony is largely an in-house affair, an invitation-only lunch attended by fewer than 300 people, and Rube Goldberg would be a more likely luncheon host than Whoopi.

But both awards have enormous status in their respective communities, and while I certainly wouldn’t claim that Pulitzer winners are remotely as well-known to the general public as Oscar winners, I have been surprised over the years to see how even the least media-savvy people perk up and pay homage when someone is introduced, in a social setting, as a “Pulitzer Prize winner.” And that is often how they are introduced -- forever after.

But the renown attached to the Pulitzers notwithstanding, some journalists question the zeal with which their employers pursue the prize. I’ve heard many reporters and editors grumble that newspapers only do certain stories to try to win a Pulitzer -- that this or that paper wasted its resources because editors assigned four reporters for three months and devoted 10 pages of space over a week’s time (or whatever), not to serve readers but only to go after Pulitzer glory.

Interestingly, I heard a similar complaint about the Oscars last summer, when a young man I know grumbled that too many movies are made “just to win Oscars.”

I said to him what I’ve said to colleagues who’ve complained about the Pulitzers: “There’s nothing wrong with doing something to win an award if you wind up doing something better than you otherwise would have.”

Having been a Pulitzer judge, I can tell you that, given how poor most newspapers in this country are, I was pleasantly surprised -- indeed, astonished -- by how much excellent journalism I saw. Other judges felt the same way. Even if the stories we read were done only in pursuit of a Pulitzer, the readers in those newspapers’ communities were much better served than if the stories had not been done.

Trying to win a Pulitzer and actually winning one are, of course, two very different things. Last year, there were almost 2,000 Pulitzer entries -- and 14 winners.

“Given the high level of competition and the different standards and tastes of [the judges] ... you can’t just set your cap for a Pulitzer on one story and expect to win,” says Eugene Roberts, former executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “My theory has always been that for every Pulitzer you get, you probably have to have five things worth a Pulitzer.”

Roberts should know. The Inquirer won 17 Pulitzers under his editorship, and he was widely perceived within the industry as being more astute than anyone at else at coming up with Pulitzer-worthy stories.

Boons of good journalism

All this might seem of purely intramural journalistic interest were it not for the importance of good journalism to the health of our democratic society. This is especially true at a time when most newspaper owners -- worried about diminished profits -- are increasingly unwilling to spend the money necessary to do good journalism.

The best newspapers -- the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, all with daily circulations ranging from 750,000 to 1.7 million -- would do world-class journalism even if there were no Pulitzers. There are several other papers, large and small, of which the same could be said.

But one of the great things about the Pulitzers -- unlike the Oscars -- is that very small papers, with very limited resources, sometimes win. Oh sure, Miramax likes to position itself as the underdog independent battling the big, bad studios, but by the time Miramax won its first Oscar for best picture -- in 1997, for “The English Patient,” which was released in 1996 -- it was part of the billion-dollar Disney empire.

It’s not uncommon, though, for a truly small newspaper to win a Pulitzer -- and to win it for performing such valuable public services as examining alcohol abuse and the problems it creates in the community (the Great Falls [Mont.] Tribune, circulation 34,000); exposing the destruction of a local coal company by men with ties to organized crime (the Pottsville [Pa.] Republican, circulation 29,000); investigating the state’s unusually high infant-mortality rate and prompting legislation to combat the problem (the Alabama Journal of Montgomery, circulation 23,000); investigating the links between rampant local crime and the corruption of the local criminal justice system -- and initiating political reforms (the Virgin Islands Daily News, circulation 16,000); and investigating the death of a local Marine and prompting a fundamental reform in Marine Corps recruitment and training practices (Lufkin [Texas] Daily News, circulation 13,000).

The smallest paper ever to win a Pulitzer was a weekly -- the Point Reyes (Calif.) Light, circulation. 3,000, which won for its investigation of Synanon. The first non-dailies to win -- the Whiteville (N.C.) News Reporter and the Tabor City (N.C.) Tribune -- were also small, with a combined weekly circulation of less than 7,000. They won Pulitzer gold medals in 1953 for separate but similarly courageous three-year campaigns exposing the Ku Klux Klan, racism and lynchings.

Am I suggesting that any of these particular stories were assigned and written with a Pulitzer in mind? Or that they would not have been written had there been no Pulitzers? No. I’m no mind reader. Besides, I think most journalists go into the profession because they want to seek justice, expose wrongdoing, comfort the afflicted and shine a light in dark and ugly corners, and they would do so with or without prizes.

But I’ve been around newspapers long enough to know that many stories are conceived with the visions of a Pulitzer dancing in the editor’s eyes. And I see nothing wrong with that. People may disagree in any given year about whether the “best” story won a Pulitzer. But unlike the Oscars, no bad or weak entries win.

No one wins a Pulitzer for the journalistic equivalent of such cinematic fluff as “The Greatest Show on Earth” and “Around the World in 80 Days,” both of which were chosen as best picture of the year. That’s why, when I hear about all those papers rolling their stories with Pulitzer potential into print at this time of the year, I can only applaud.

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David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.