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The Pulitzer Prize: A major award! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's well, no, Jerry's not here. Man talk
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: about habit. Ben's here. It's the reign of Ben still
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: and that makes this these days stuff you should know.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: That's right. The episode in which we talk about a
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: major reward.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's not a leg lamp, but the Pulitzer Prize.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: It is a you know, it's an award with much
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: prestige attached. They will be giving out the next round
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  Speaker 4: on May eighth, probably not too long after this episode
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: comes out, in twenty three different categories. At a ceremony
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: at Columbia University in.
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  Speaker 3: New York City, did you say Pulitzer? Pulitzer? What do
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: you say?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: That's what I say now. I said Pulitzer for the
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: vast majority of my life.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Though, Do you know which is right?
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I think Pulitzer. Okay, yeah, we've been corrected enough times.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I think it is Pulitzer. You got it right?
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: All right?
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: Good they are and we'll go over all the categories.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: But what you should know about the Pulitzer Prize is
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: they are distinguished works of American works, Yeah, in a
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: variety of categories. And I don't think even until yesterday
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: I fully realized that it was such a strictly American award.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't either, which is ironic because it was the brainchild.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: It was founded by Joseph Pulitzer, who was a Hungarian immigrant. Yeah,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: but loved America. Loved America so much he moved to
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Missouri and didn't leave for a while.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: He was born into a wealthy family April tenth, eighteen
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: forty seven and was a real like ambitious dude. He
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: came over to fought to fight in the American Civil War.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: For the Union. Yeah that's something, and did, in fact
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: enlists for a year in the Lincoln Cavalry.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: But he became a newspaper publisher at the age of
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: twenty five, and by the time he was thirty one,
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: he was the owner of this Saint Louis Dispatch, like
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: a major paper.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Yet no, the Dispatch is still around. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: that's amazing. I didn't see how he ended up in
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: New York, but eventually he made his way to New
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: York and with his experience running a paper, took over
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: the world. The New York World, which was just a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: New York paper in eighteen eighty three when he started,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: but under his tenure it became the first national newspaper
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: like the USA today of its time.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and he was, like I said, he was a
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: tireless worker.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: But he also suffered from poor health for most of
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: his life. I'm not sure exactly what it was, because
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: I saw that noises were a big deal. So he
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: would like have like rooms that were just like vaults
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: basically so he could sit in silence. But this poor health,
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: and I think he had failing vision two. He eventually,
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: at the young age of forty three, technically retired as
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: editor in chief of the World, but still really maintained
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: a pretty tight control over that paper.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Right. So today we think of Joseph Pulleitzer, we associate
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: his name with distinguished works of journalism, like the Cream
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: of the Crop of journalism every year, and that it
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: turns out as largely by design, because Joseph Pulleitzer, at
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: the time he was alive and running the New York World,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: was well known for being the essentially the guy who
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: helped create yellow journalism, using hyperbole, using sensationalism, like writing
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: front page stories about people's divorces, like just scandal tabloid
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: stuff like this guy helped establish tabloid journalism in the
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: United States, And it might not have been quite so
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: pronounced his brand of yellow journalism had he not had
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: a like a rival who actually, in like perfect star
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Wars in fashion, was actually his protege protege turned rival,
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  Speaker 2: a guy named William Randolph.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: Hurst, that's right, And they had the New York American Journal.
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  Speaker 4: American was the big paper for Hurst at the time,
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  Speaker 4: and they were in a real sort of neck and
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: neck battle to sell newspapers there in New York and
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: really kind of went at it yellow journalism style.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so yellow journalism, it turns out, has to do.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: We must have talked about it in our comics episode
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: or whatever there was. The Yellow Kid was a character
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: on the comic called Hogan's Alley and the World and
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the Journal American both had versions of this cartoon, essentially
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: one ripped off the other. So this was known as
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: the competition between the Yellow Kids, which came to be
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: known as yellow journalism. Right, and they would just pull
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: out all the stops, And apparently this race to the
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: bottom is largely blamed for starting the Spanish American War
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: essentially or at least getting America behind the whole thing,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: so there was like real repercussions to it. People's lives
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: would be ruined. And so the idea that Joseph Pulitzer's
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: name is associated with, like the greatness of journalism is
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: really one of the better cases of I guess whitewashing
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: your image over time.
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he did believe in great journalism. He
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: said at one point, my idea is to recognize that
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  Speaker 4: journalism is or ought to be one of the great
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: and intellectual professions. And there's more to the quote, but
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: like he was, he had this idea that he revered
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: this journalism, maybe because he wasn't doing it. And in
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: eighteen ninety two he approached Columbia University president and said, hey,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: how about we get a graduate school of journalism going
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: there isn't one in the whole world. They said, eh, no, thanks,
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: So Missouri, the Missouri University of Missouri School of Journalism
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: became the first one in nineteen oh eight. The Nobel
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: Prizes were launched in nineteen oh one, and right after that,
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  Speaker 4: Joseph Pulleitzer said, well, why don't we have our own
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: awards for journalism. This is nineteen oh two. Two years later,
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: in nineteen oh four, in his will he said, hey, Columbia,
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: here's two hundred and fifty grand, which is about nine
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: million bucks today. Established these prizes, and Columbia had a
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: new president at the time, and they said this guy
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: named Nicholas Butler.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: He was like, yeah, that sounds great.
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  Speaker 4: I'll take that money, and I'll also take the two
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: million dollars that you're going to give us for that
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: graduate school that we now think is a good idea,
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: which is about seventy one million bucks today.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: That's right, So very wisely, Joseph Pullitzer, he helped establish
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: his legacy. He steered what his name would be remembered
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: for by creating the foremost prize for journalists. Right.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: He didn't live to see it though, right.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Uh No, I believe I don't know what year he died,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: but it was before nineteen seventy nineteen seventeen.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he died in nineteen eleven, Okay, so he didn't
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: even I think the graduate school opened a year after that,
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: and then the Pulletzers didn't start until six years later.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, So he probably died with his fingers crossed, and
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: it actually paid off because not only did he he
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: did two really smart things. Chuck. One, he created a
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: panel a board to oversee the Pulitzer Prizes, and he
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: very wisely said, you it's up to you guys to
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: let these prizes evolve with the times. Don't let them
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: just be stuck in like nineteen oh four type stuff, like,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: we want them to just kind of grow and evolve,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: and they have over time. That was very smart. And
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: then secondly, he tied them not just a journalist, but
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: to drama, to music, to fiction, poetry. And at the time,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: the American arts were considered foreig inferior to Europe, but
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: they were still considered vastly superior to American journalism. So
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: by hitching the wagon of journalism to this more revered
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  Speaker 2: and legitimate form of expression, he raised journalism as well
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: the profile of journalism, and it worked. I mean, it
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: was really sharp how we set all this up, because
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  Speaker 2: it paid off in aces.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think music came after him because his initial
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: eight awards were four for journalism and then four book
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  Speaker 4: and drama awards. Compared to the twenty three categories we
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  Speaker 4: have today fifteen in journalism, five in books, one in drama,
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  Speaker 4: one in music, and one for graduate fellowships in journalism.
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  Speaker 4: And I say we take an early break, yeah, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: go over these categories.
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  Speaker 2: All right, let's do it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Lately I've been learning some stuff about insomnia or alumnia.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: How about the one on borderl disorder that are under order.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: You've heard that one be more, but it was so
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: nice I learned this.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: Why except everybody listen up, stop stop lead stop stop stop.
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  Speaker 4: So we're gonna go over all twenty three categories. Dave
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: helped us with this, So we'll just tell you a
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: little bit about him because there's so many and maybe
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: mentioned like some notable winners or maybe this past year's winner.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: This is going to be a four parter.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. One thing you will notice is that.
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  Speaker 4: He was a populist guy, Joseph Pulitzer was very sort
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  Speaker 4: of progressive populist. Even though he was a wealthy dude
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  Speaker 4: from a wealthy family. He really wanted to identify with
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  Speaker 4: a common person. And the winners, as you'll see, still
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  Speaker 4: have a very sort of populous progressive bit to them.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, very much so to this day. And it's you know,
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  Speaker 3: through Columbia university.
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  Speaker 4: Still, so it's not You're not gonna see Alex Jones
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  Speaker 4: winning a Pulitzer Prize, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, for one of many reasons such a shock.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So the first one, the big Daddy, as they call
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  Speaker 2: it at Columbia, is the Public Service Award. This is
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  Speaker 2: the only Pulitzer award that comes with an actual engraved medal. Right, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that's what they expect you to do when they hand
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: you the medals. Dave who helped us with us he
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: put it, it's like the MVP of Pulitzers. Yeah, this
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  Speaker 2: is so if you win this one, usually it's for
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  Speaker 2: an entire organization. Sometimes they'll they'll mention like the lead writer,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: if it was basically the work of one person. But
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  Speaker 2: usually it's like the New York Times newsroom, or the
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  Speaker 2: Washington Post newsroom, or yea once in a while, the
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  Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal's newsroom. Usually one of the big news
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  Speaker 2: services organizations are the ones who win the Public Service Award.
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  Speaker 4: That's right, that's the big Daddy. So there's also the
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Breaking News Reporting Award. Obviously, it's about breaking news and
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: it is for a story that quote as quickly as possible,
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  Speaker 4: captures events accurately, as they occur and as time passes, eliminates,
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: provides contexts, and expands upon the initial coverage. One notable
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: winner was the Denver Post the year the Columbine massacre happened,
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: or the New Orleans Times pick a UNI for their
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: coverage of Katrina in two thousands, that kind of thing.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, journalism, what journalism is supposed to be. They have
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: a special award for that.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, newsy journalism.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: There's also investigative reporting, which you don't really need to
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: spell out because sure you know it is what it is.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: But for this year, the Wall Street Journal one, they
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: had a series of articles, and that's a recurring theme.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Very frequently the winners have had a series of articles
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: rather than just one big whopper of an article. Yeah,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: and that's actually by design, as we'll see. But there
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: was a series of articles about the conflicts of interest
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: between people at fifty different federal agencies and the stocks
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: of the companies that they regulated, and how they used
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: that information to basically trade publicly. Like you remember our
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: COVID episode where we started shouting about how some of
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: the senators who were debriefed on COVID and then went
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: and sold stock should be locked up. Yeah, it was
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: about that basically.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 4: What is for explanatory reporting if it's like a really
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: complex topic that someone can break down in a in
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: a great way.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: One for local reporting. So yeah, that speaks for itself.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is where it's much easier for a
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: smaller organization to shop. Yeah, sure, that's good. Else there's
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: also national reporting, again usually goes to the larger, the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: larger organizations just because they cover more of the nation.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: International reporting, same thing. And then feature writing, where you're
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: you're also kind of credited for bringing in style, like
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: making a like taking a topic and actually like making
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: it more readable in some ways. There's just some a
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: certain flare to it. It's like the TGI Fridays of Pulitzers.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I'd get a bigger reaction out, even you jerk.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: Commentary. That is for columnists, but it is not editorial columns.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: That's another one.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: Criticism, like if you're a you know, drama critic or
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: a restaurant critic or someone like that. Like Roger Ebert
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: won one in nineteen seventy five.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So did our old friend Michiko Kakutani, who, as Dave
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: helpfully pointed out as a she for me because I
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: got it so so wrong before, so so.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Wrong, which will we already corrected, Dave. Yeah, what else?
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: We do have one for editorial writing. This is for
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: you know, either editorial boards or op ed writers. Right,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: illustrated reporting. This is a fun one because that's for
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: editorial cartoonists.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they used to call it, and then
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: they changed it to illustrated reporting and commentary. And for
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: this year, Mona Chellabi won for The New York Times.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: She had a series illustrating Jeff Bezos's wealth and they
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: were all pretty clever and interesting, so were the finalists
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: the runners up too, but she had one that showed
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: so it compared the avera Ridge Amazon employees wages to
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos's wealth, and so that the average Amazon employee
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: made thirty seven, nine and thirty dollars in twenty twenty
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: and at that rate, to reach Jeff Bezos's wealth of
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy two billion, they would have had
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: to have started working in the Pliocene epoch four point
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: five million years ago. They really drove it home to me.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those are always fun, Yeah you can.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was going to say like, oh, was it
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: just a sack of money in the shape of the
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: United States or something.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: No, it was much more telling that.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah that's how you went a Pulitzer exactly.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: But I mean the runners up too, were just just
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: just good stuff. Like go look up illustrated reporting and
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: commentary Pulitzer stuff and you'll you'll be like, wow, this
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: is amazing that people do this.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: We should we should do one on political what are
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: they called cartoons?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, editorial cartoons.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we should do one on that whole thing.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: That'd be a fun one, I think.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yumy's uncle is an editorial cartoonist, a well known
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: one in Japan.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: No way, way, wow, all right, well, we're definitely gonna
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: do it. Then, okay, that's the old deal.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: I have seen that there's breaking news photography, you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: that's obviously some usually some tragedy is unfolding and someone
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: will snap a iconic photo. Different from the feature photography award.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: This is like a photo series usually yeah that has
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: a tells a story.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: That's feature photography.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: It's more flip bookie than the breaking news photography.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: And then finally, everybody introduced just a few years ago
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: audio reporting, Like there is a they don't call it
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: the Podcast Award, but that's kind of what it is.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Well, it includes podcasts, but it can also include like
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: local yeah, public radio, like features and stories and all that.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: That's a huge expansion because before it was all print,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: it was all writing, as we'll see. So that's a big,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: a big new one. And there's another new one coming
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: down the pike that allows broadcast outlets like say, your
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: local NBC affiliate it's a really great reporter that writes
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: on their website that reporter will now be eligible for
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Pulitzer stuff.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: That's cool.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Then there's also the whole book section, which is interesting.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the Prize for Fiction used to be called the
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: Prize for novels, but now it's fiction. Usually it's about
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: American life, says you know, preferably, but it's American author
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: generally with a story about Americans American ing.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So every year they picked that year's Great American
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: novel basically.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's remember I said I was reading a book,
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: a novel for the first time in a while recently. Yeah,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: I picked this book because that's sometimes when I'm after
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: a novel and it's been in a while, I will
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: go to the Pulitzer list, and that's exactly what I did.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: And I'm reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer, which one
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: in twenty eighteen, and it is so funny and great awesome.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: From in Living Color to Pulitzer Price.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, David Allen Greer com.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Oh oh that's right. There's also one on history, a
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: one on biography also other way outs biography.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Your man, Charles Mann has not won the Pulitzer. I
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: looked it up. I was like, surely Josh's guy won
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: this award for history.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's more. He's more focused on meso American.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: This is America, like United States American.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: I think that counts.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I agree, But apparently the Pulitzer committee is not interested
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: in that kind of thing.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: He won which was yours fourteen ninety one.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the follow up was fourteen ninety three.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he won a big award for that, but not
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: the Pulitzer.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, he definitely deserved it for sure.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So you mentioned biography.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's also now memoir or autobiography, sure.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Which was branded this past year.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just really busting out the new awards.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, they got a Poetry Award for American Poets
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: general nonfiction.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: That would be what our book won a Politzer.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: For, right, so nonfiction but not a memoir or autobiography
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: or biography.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'm not sure if we said this, and
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it was spelled out, but the
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: it had to have been released in that year. Yeah, yeah, okay,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: so the good point. Okay, that's that's very important. So
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: like our book will never win a Pulitzer because it
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: had a shot at winning the year it came out,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: and then after that it's out of the running.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Same uh, same with drama. There's a drama one that
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: we said, like usually it is a great American play.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: David Mammott won for Glengarry Glenn Ross.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, what's the name one, oh David.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Well Miranda, Yes, that guy, Yeah yeah.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: August Wilson won for Fences, another great play. So yeah,
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: great great plays.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: And then music, and this one's typically kind of controversial
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: because it really reveals just how stuffy the Pulitzer board is.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: In any given year. It almost always goes to a
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: like a recording of classical music that somebody released that year,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: and classical music is not exactly America's contribution. These are
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: American awards. Don't forget about America by Americans. Typically well,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: America contributed jazz, rock for the most part, and hip
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: hop very clearly as far as music goes, and only
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: one hip hop artist. I'm surprised that there's even one.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Kendrick Lamar won a Pulletzer in twenty seventeen. A couple
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: of jazz cats have, but for the most part, it's
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: usually classical music. So look for that to continue to
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: change in the future because from what I can tell,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the Pulletzer people are hyper aware of how they are
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: perceived in the in the intelligentsia version of pop culture
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: and respond to it subtly over time.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, what I want to know is how many of
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: our friends in Britain their heads about to pop off.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: That's why I said kind of I qualified the invented
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: rock and roll. We had a lot to do with it.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Hey, of course we did.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Chuck Berry was in British.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: No, I know, we trust me.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: I'm with you, okay, And some can even say that
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: the you know, the American Blues is the true birth
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: of what would become rock and roll because all those
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: British bands were influenced by the American blues exactly.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah to stick it.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, take that our British friends.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: You know what's interesting though, is the biggest sort of
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: rock bands of the classic rock era, most of those
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: were not American. I mean that we had our share,
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: but like when you think about you know, the biggest
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: bands in the world, they were led Zeppelin and the Who,
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and mostly British.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: So super super duper classic version, not like White Lion
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: or Dockin No, no, no, because they were Americans through
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: and through.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: My friend Yeah, yeah, I mean we had Boston and
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: the Eagles and Aerosmiths and stuff like that.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Sure, but they have flatbirds.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: No.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Boys, See, you're taking a rite down the White Lion lane.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: All right? Should we keep going or should we take
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: a break here?
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Uh, let's keep going since we already took it early one.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Okay. If you guys thought it was a slog before
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: buckle up.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: That's right, because we're going to talk about how they
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: choose these and the first step. And I think the
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: main reason we didn't win a Pulitzer Prize is that
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: we didn't submit our book.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: You gotta submit.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: They just don't say, all right, every book that's written
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: this year will look at you.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: You got to. You gotta pay your seventy five bucks
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: and submit it.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't have seventy five bucks.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: We did.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: We thought about it. We couldn't couldn't get the company
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: to back us or.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Pay us to stand off. You and I had to
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: standoff of it was like, well, I know you got it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: You're not gonna pay it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: I'm it.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I noticed Jerry didn't step forward.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's Jerry needs to bust out the wallet one.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: There are a couple of like our book would have
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: qualified and every other way it had to have been
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: published in a hard copy definitely was That separates a
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: lot of the self published ebooks, which apparently are not
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: up for Pulitzer consideration. Unless you self publish a book
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: in hard copy. As long as this in hard copy somewhere,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: it's eligible to be considered for a Pulitzer, and you,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the author, like you said, can suggest it, can nominate
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: it yourself.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: If you're entering in journalism, it has to be in
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: a news outlet that publishes regularly, so it can't be
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: the zine you put out, you know when you feel
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: like it. Right, that can be online only versions. It
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: doesn't have to be in pay per form, but it
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: has to be like a legit, you know, qualifying website.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, for sure. And then now, like I was saying,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: broadcast media outlets, their writers can can be eligible for
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: stuff posted on their websites, But there's nothing for documentaries.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: There's nothing for video only journalism. I predict this changing
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: in the next within this decade.
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they'll be just one for like content creator, their influencer.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Dave makes a point here to watch out for when
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: something claims to be bullets are nominated, because if you
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: have submitted, then you're technically nominated. It doesn't mean that
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: you're special because anyone can can nominate. If if you've
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: got seventy five bucks, you can and you qualify, you
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: can put yourself in there. I say that they should
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: require people just say bullets are submitted.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Right, we can't even claim that.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but if you don't win. The only other sort
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: of distinctive honor is if you're one of the three
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: finalists and you can claim to be a finalist.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's yeah. If you're a policer finalist, Like,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: you can still toot that horn for sure and people
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: will listen.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're like three out of I think they are
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: eleven hundred journalism entries per year on average.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Wow, and about fourteen hundred books.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, now we reach step two. Like your
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: work has been nominated, it gets shuffled together with a
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: lot of other stuff and about one hundred different jurors,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: sometimes repeat jurors from the year before. You don't have
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: to just do it once. And it's not the same
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: people every year for sure. But they're all volunteer jurors.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: They get assigned to twenty two different categories. And yes
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: we said there's twenty three. But the photographers who are
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: the jurors judge both breaking news and feature photography, and
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: they are people who are some time former Pulitzer winners.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: There are people who are like really well known in
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: their field. I think like Roxane Gay was one of
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: the jurors on this past year's poetry Poetry Committee. I
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: think so, Like you're you're probably pretty good at your
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: job if you're on a Pulitzer jury.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Josh, I have one question, though, what are any of
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: those jurors.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Jurors for the local reporting ones.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, okay, Giral jurors, Yep, that's great.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: You usually serve a few years and then they'll rotate
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: you out.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: You don't get paid for it's a volunteer thing, but
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: you got If you're on the book side, you were
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: reading a lot of books.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently for the fiction category, there might be three
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: hundred books that you have to read through within several months.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: I tried and tried to find out if that was
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: because what I saw was there are six book juries
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: with five jurors per jury, so thirty different judges, and
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: they send them in thirty book packages. But I didn't know,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: are they really it's impossible to read three hundred books
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: over the course of months, not if.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: You're Pulitzer jury material, My friend.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Is that the deal?
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: Because I was trying to verify that, I thought maybe
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: they read thirty each and just it was all like
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: packaged together or something.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I didn't see anywhere that contradicted that. And yes, three
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: hundred books is a lot to read. As a matter
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: of fact, now that that we're talking about it, that
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: is a preposterous number for one person to read within
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: several months.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, how many books is that a week? Two weeks?
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: One hundred? I think if my math is correct.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: That's almost six books a week. Is that possible?
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: No, it's not, because these people also have like regular
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: jobs that their whole holding down too.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: So I really looked and looked and looked, and I
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: could not find. What I'm guessing is is that they
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: get thirty books per judge.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Which is still quite a bit. But yes, that's much
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: more manageable than three hundred.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: I hope somebody knows, because I really want to get
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: to the bottom of this. There's no way there they're
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: reading three hundred books.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: I wonder.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I wonder if each judge so this would make a
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: lot of sense. And again, like we've never advertised ourselves
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: as experts, and I think we're showing it big time now.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: But if I were guessing, chuck each if each one
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: reads thirty books, they pick like their favorites and present
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: them to the committee and say, these are some of
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: my favorites. And everybody does that, and it immediately whittles
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: it down to a manageable size. That would make a
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: lot of sense. And then maybe the other ones have
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: to read the books that the other people brought forth.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, rat, I mean that makes sense. I was just
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: destraughed at how hard it was to find this out.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: I looked and looked and looked, and I couldn't find
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: out for sure if they each read each book.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: So that's an ongoing thing too. From what I've seen
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: that the deliberation process is very secretive. The Pulitzer Committee
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: and board and anyone associated with it has no obligation
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: whatsoever to be transparent about the judging process at all.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a criticism. But ultimately what happens is
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: they will meet in person in February at Columbia, sometimes
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: in March, and they reduce it to the three finalists,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: and then the board picks the ultimate winner from each
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: of the picks of three. Well that's not true. They
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: are generally picked from that group of three, but they
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: are not required to pick from that group of three.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: And there have been many cases leap twelve times in
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: fiction at least, where they did not award a winner
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: at all.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Anytime the board decides not to pick somebody, it's
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: a huge it's considered a huge slap in the face.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: As recently as twenty twenty one. So twenty twelve for fiction,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, for the Editorial Cartoon prize, the board
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: opted not to choose from the three finalists Lalo Alcaraz,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Marty two Boles Senior, and Ruben Bowling from Tom the
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Dancing Bug. They were the three finalists and none of
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: them won.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: And so with he did someone win? No, they look
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: like there was no award to gotcha.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: No award? And I saw Ruben Bowling was basically like, so, yeah,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: they're saying no one made Pulitzer worthy material this year,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: and that's that's like, that's crazy. And but I liked
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Marty two Ball's interpretation. He said that to him, they
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: had so much trouble picking a winner that nobody won.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: They all spoiled when another's chance, because there has to
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: be there can be a hung jury. You have to
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: get some percentage of the votes to make it as
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: the as the winner and not just a finalist.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Well that's what happened in twenty twelve for sure, because
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: they actually came out and said for fiction.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: That it was a three way tie.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: That's rare. With the editorial cartoon in twenty twenty one,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: they just stayed, Mom, They just said, no awards going
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: to be awarded.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but like, how do you have a tie, Like
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: you could either have an odd number on the board
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: or let that president because the president of Columbia is
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: always on the board. Still they should be the tie
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: breaker or something.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: That is a huge criticism that that's even possible that
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: you couldn't do that not have a winner because they deadlock.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: All right, thumbs down Bulleitzer for that decision for me
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: to get with the times.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: So you hit on something earlier. You thought I was saying,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: the board can select somebody that wasn't even nominated by
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the jury.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yeah, if it's not someone outside that final three.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they apparently just need a three quarters vote to
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: either select somebody that wasn't nominated, that was in that
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: category or was in another category, and they moved them
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: to a category they think they are likeli or to win.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: That happened with the biography of George Floyd this past year.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: It was nominated in biography. Apparently this biography and Jaeger
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Hoover with such gangbusters that it was no way even
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: George Floyd's biography was going to win. They moved it
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: to the general nonfiction category, and George Floyd's biography won
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: in that one. So it's like you said, the Pulitzer
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: committee is very conscious of the messages they're sending out
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: by their awards, for sure, and sometimes they maneuver to
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: speak loud and clear.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: All right, I say we take our second break, and
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: we'll finish up with talking about some of the controversies
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: and some of the surprises over the years.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Lately I've been learning some stuff about insomnia or aluminia.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: How about the one on border like disorder, better under order?
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Heard that one before, but it was so nice I
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: learned it.
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: Wise, everybody, listen up, stop shut off, stop stop stop.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: So uh. One of the things that the Pulitzers are
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: definitely criticized for is the frequency, Yeah, the frequency of
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: ords that go to the same news organizations over and
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: over and over again, because the Pulitzers were award extensive
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: in depth reporting that you really kind of have to
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: have a pretty decent budget to carry out. And so
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: The New York Times has won one hundred and thirty
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: two Pulitzers over the years. The Washington Post has seventy plus,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: The Associated Press has fifty eight so like the big
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: news organizations are the ones who usually take home the most,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: but they have it set up in a way that,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: like the local news reporting is much likelier to go
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: to a smaller organization than the bigger guys. But that
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: big one, the big daddy, as we said, the Public
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Service Award almost always goes to or very often goes to,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: one of the large news organizations. But that's not always
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: the case, Chuck, it's not always the case.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: In twenty seventeen for editorial writing the Storm Lake Times one,
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: this is a speaking a rural juror. They probably went
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: wild over this because this is a paper that runs
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: twice a week with a staff of nine people, with
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: a circulation of about three thousand in rural Iowa. And
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: it beat the big daddies, that beat the New York
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Times in the Wall Street Journal, among others.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. In nineteen ninety, a few years earlier, the Washington
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Daily News out of Washington, North Carolina. They won because
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: they had a series of articles that exposed that the
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: city council was well aware that the drinking water was
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: tainted with carcinogens and that they were covering it up.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: And they won a pulletzer. They had a circulation of
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: eighty six hundred and forty four. So, in addition to
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: these really good reporting that it would require for a
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: small organization to win the public service pullets or the
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: big one, it's worth pointing out these people are under
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: the most pressure to not publish stories like that. Yeah,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: their friends, neighbors and grocery store shoppers, with the mayor,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: with the city manager, with the Chamber of Commerce head
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: like the people who are who can pressure them and
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: say like, you're you're ruining the image of our town.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Don't don't write about this or change the tone of it.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: So in that sense, those people deserve a pulletzer even
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: more than say, you know, a huge organization that can
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: that can just kind of deflect that kind of stuff
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: is under tremendous pressure. There's a difference getting a call
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: from the president saying I don't want you to run
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: this and getting a call from the mayor saying you
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: don't want to run this, But it's still it seems different.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like the pressure is even greater for smaller
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: news organizations.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: So as far as controversies go, there are a few
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: kind of famous incidents that not incidences. By the way,
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: I've been saying that wrong, have you. An incidents doesn't
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: mean something that happened, it's an incident.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Somebody pointing that out to me.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, believe it or not.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: Someone wrote in and point out out something that we
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: said that was bothered them.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: That's a first.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: Anyway, we should talk about these incidents.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: The first one was from nineteen eighty one.
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: A woman named Janet Cook at the time was writing
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: for the Washington Post and was the first black woman
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: to get a Politzer Prize and feature writing well I
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: think journalism period. And this was a story about called
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Jimmy's World, about an eight year old heroin addict named
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: Jimmy and Washington, d C.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: It had such an effect that at the time Marion
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Barry was mayor. Marion Barry was mayor of DC forever.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: He ordered his administration to find this kid and get
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: him away from his parents. It was a huge It
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: just dropped a bomb on not just Washington, d C.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: But the whole country. And Janet Cook made the whole
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: thing up.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: So it was submitted by who at the time was
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: the assistant managing editor of the post, a guy named
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: Bob Woodward, none other than and he submitted this thing.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: She had previously, for three years worked for the Toledo Blade,
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: which was her hometown newspaper and Josh's sometown newspaper. And
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: they were like, wait a minute, she worked here, and
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: we're looking at her bio from the Pulitzer Committee, and like,
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: this doesn't match up with the bio that she gave us.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: It says she speaks all these languages. She doesn't speak
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: all these languages. She didn't graduate magna cum laude from Vassar,
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: she didn't have a master's degree from University of Toledo.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: And so they start kind of like her old employer
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: started grilling her publicly about this, and she initially said, like,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: all right, I fudged my resume some and literally within
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: hours it all fell apart. She eventually copped to making
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: up this whole story. This is as Marion Barry and
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: the DC cops are coming up empty looking for this
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: non existent kid, and Marion Barry's casting public doubt. But
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: was in a you know, kind of a pickle of
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: a situation. Yeah, like it seems like there's no Jimmy,
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: but like we're not sure what's going on. I think
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: the sad thing is that apparently it's sort of like
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: the A Million Little Pieces book. Yeah, that guy wrote
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: like I read that book and it was great with
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: a capital G. And in my mind I was always like, dude,
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: why did you just should have called it a novel
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: and you would have been fine. And apparently the writing
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: in Jimmy's world was so great, like really famous authors
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: came out and we're like, I just wish she hadn't
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: have done this all. You know, she should have won
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: That was so good.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: But she put herself out there for a pulletzer and
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: that was that was the fatal flaw.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So it took days before she finally fested up
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: and and and retracted the story and said that she
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: was returning her pulletzer, which from what I could tell,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: she didn't have to do. She could have been like,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: thanks for the pulletzer jumps, I don't I guess they
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: could rescind it, but she didn't have to give it back.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: So she did and moved to France and just stayed
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: in communicado for a decade or two and then Teresa Carpenter,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: who wrote the story Death of a Playmate about the
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: murder of Dorothy Stratton in The Village Voice, ended up
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: winning the nineteen eighty one Pulletzer for feature writing. She was,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I guess the runner up, and after Janet Cook gave
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: it back, Teresa Carpenter got it and that was a
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: really good story. It was definitely pullets are worthy.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Alex Haley was another one in nineteen seventy seven for
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: his book Roots, which I never knew it had a colon,
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: but I didn't either. The full title of Roots was
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: Roots Colon the Saga of an American Family. I think
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: I've seen it before on the cover, but it they
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: didn't call it mini series that so.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Plus the colon was implied.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: It was a novel, but Haley claimed that it was
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: based on his family from his own African heritage that
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: he had researched, and it turned out that that probably
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: wasn't true. It was unverified, and he admitted to plagiarizing
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: parts of Roots from other novels. At the time, they
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: did not rescind his Bulletser though it was a special citation.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: It wasn't the Book Prize, So I think they just
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: let it slide.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a real campaign to get that special citation,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: even rescinded by some people. But yeah, I had no
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: idea that Roots was fabricated in some ways or plagiarized
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: to And then there's a guy named Walter Duranty who
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: inspired so much. I guess dislike is a nice way
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: to put it among journalists that he was awarded the
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Poltzer back in nineteen thirty two. People still today are
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: calling for that to be rescinded. And then the war
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: in Ukraine kind of flared it back up again after
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: kind of dying off a little. He was the Moscow
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: bureau chief for the New York Times, a Pulitzer, like
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: I said in thirty two, for his reporting on Joseph
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Stalin and Stalin's dictatorship, and essentially he was the guy
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: who was presenting Stalin in a really great light to America.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: He was a huge apologist for Stalin. And it's gross
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: because in his Pulitzer award it says that he was
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: awarded for his dispassionate reporting. It was not just passionate
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: at all. It was in favor of Stalin and Stalin's
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: policies that killed millions of people.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and one of his direct quotes was to pretty brutally,
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. But when
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: talking about the death of Ukrainians.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Right, so he still has his Pulitzer. People are still
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: mad about it.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we did mention the you know, the sort of
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: secrecy of how it goes out is always controversial. And
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: it's like any award, any subjective award, whereas he whether
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: it's Academy Awards or Emmy's or whatever, they're all subjective.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: So there's always going to be people complaining that it's
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: not rigged. But just like you got to be a
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: certain kind of thing to win this award. Just like
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: an Oscar bait movie that they throw out at the
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: end of the year, there are Pulitzer I don't know
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: about bait, but you know, when these publications are putting
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: together these series, they're like, hey, you do a good
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: job here, and you know what might be at the
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: end of that road.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Right, there's a really great you can characterize it as
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: a takedown very easily by Jack Schaeffer in Politico called
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: the Pulitzer Prize scam from a few years back, and
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Jack Schaeffer basically is like, how could you possibly compare
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: some of this stuff and find any distinguishable difference enough
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: that says this one's better than this one? And an
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: example I came up with is the editorial writing Pulitzer
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: for twenty twenty three. It went to a writer for
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: a series on the broken promises of the city of
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Miami to citizens. Right, the runners up were one that
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: explained the U'voldi tragedy and the botched police response, and
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: then the other runner up was about how domestic white
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: supremacist terrorism affects the United States. How could you compare
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: those three things and be like, Yep, this one's better.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, because the writing in and of itself is
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: going to just be top notch to begin with. So
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: then what you're using the material to judge it? Bi, well,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: how do you compare that material to other material? It
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: is fully subjective, and that drives some people nuts.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think with any award like that,
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: the voter, whether it's a board member of the Pulitzer
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: or an Academy member, is voting on something that speaks
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: to them the most, I guess.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Right, And like you said, I mean it is if
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: you look at some of the material, a lot of
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: the material, it is very liberal in it's bent, and
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: it shines a light on the kind of the kind
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: of issues that liberals would be interested and upset about.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: And that seems to be generally what the Pulitzer committees
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: tend to the juries tend to percolate towards the top.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's clubbe university, it's academia. They have
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: that bent anyway, generally that I mean that joke I
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: made about Alex Jones earlier.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: I want to be clear.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: They're not giving him and they're not denying him the
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: award because he's a conservative. You know, they're denying him
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: the award because he's a lying liar, right, you know
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: there's a difference for sure.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not even sure he qualifies as conservative at this point.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, who knows?
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: You got anything else on Pulitzer prizes? No?
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, should we put in for podcast or not?
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Oh? I don't. I don't know, man.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: I mean I feel like in order for us to
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: put in, we would have to do a special, like
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: four part series on something. It couldn't just be for well,
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: it certainly couldn't be for all excellence.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: No, definitely, for a lot of reason. Definitely not. But yeah,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: we could do We'll do a four part series on
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: jelly beans.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or maybe we should just submit to the episode
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: for the word like.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great idea. Okay, Okay, we're gonna do that.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: In the meantime, if you want to know more about
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: the politzerprise, go Rey Jack Shaffer's takedown. It's a good
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: place to start because he also gives a lot of
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: background too. And since I said background, it's time for
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: listener mail.
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: This one is from a teacher. We love these, Hey guys,
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: I'm a chemistry professor at the College of Worcester in Ohio.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: And he says Wester not Wooster.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: But that's another story.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: One of the joys in my work is chatting with
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: college students in the lab while we wait for experiments
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: to complete, talking about life, current events, random facts. There
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: have been some uncanny similarities between our conversations and your
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: recent are you guys listening in Luckily most of my
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: recent experience. In my most recent experience, you realized the
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: podcast before the conversation. I was never taught much African history,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: and thanks to you walked away from your Highly Selassie
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: podcast feeling well in formed. I shared what I learned
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: with one of my students from Ethiopia, and during the
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: conversation they shared an interesting fact of their own. Apparently
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: there is a bump engineered on purpose in the road
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: at the spot where highly Selassie's former residence is. So
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: when motorists pass by, they hit the bump and their
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: head bobs, and it is so every head will bow
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: when they.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Drive by his house.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Pretty amazing.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: And I try to find this out and verified it.
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: I didn't spend a whole lot of time looking because
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: you know, fact checking listener mail is something I want
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: to put a lot of time into. But hey, if
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: this is true, that's pretty pretty awesome.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and even if it's not true, I'm going to
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: go do the same thing in front of my house.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Bags of cementas Yeah, I expense them too.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: Awesome. That is from Paul Bonbalay.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Paul, that's a great email. Thank you
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: very much, and yes, we are watching you in your class.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Keep up the good work. If you want to be
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: like Paul and get in touch with us, we love
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: hearing additional facts that may be so amazing that they
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: possibly aren't true, but are still a good idea. If
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: you want to do that, you can send it in
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.