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Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize (/ˈpʊlɪtsər/[1]) is an award administered by Columbia University for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher.[2]

Pulitzer Prize

Excellence in newspaper journalism, literary achievements, musical composition

United States

Columbia University

1917 (1917)

pulitzer.org

As of 2023, prizes are awarded annually in 23 categories.[3] In 22 of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award, raised from $10,000 in 2017.[4] The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.[5][6]

– for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper, magazine or news site through the use of its journalistic resources, including the use of stories, editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics, videos, databases, multimedia or interactive presentations or other visual material. Often thought of as the grand prize, and mentioned first in listings of the journalism prizes, the Public Service award is only given to the winning news organization. Alone among the Pulitzer Prizes, it is awarded in the form of a gold medal.

Public Service

– for a distinguished example of local, state or national reporting of breaking news that, as quickly as possible, captures events accurately as they occur, and, as time passes, illuminates, provides context and expands upon the initial coverage.

Breaking News Reporting

– for a distinguished example of investigative reporting, using any available journalistic tool.

Investigative Reporting

– for a distinguished example of explanatory reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing and clear presentation, using any available journalistic tool.

Explanatory Reporting

– for a distinguished example of reporting on significant issues of local concern, demonstrating originality and community expertise, using any available journalistic tool.[17]

Local Reporting

– for a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs, using any available journalistic tool.

National Reporting

– for a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, using any available journalistic tool.

International Reporting

– for distinguished feature writing giving prime consideration to quality of writing, originality and concision, using any available journalistic tool.

Feature Writing

– for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool.

Commentary

– for distinguished criticism, using any available journalistic tool.

Criticism

– for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, using any available journalistic tool.

Editorial Writing

– for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing and pictorial effect, published as a still drawing, animation or both.

Editorial Cartooning

previously called Spot News Photography – for a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs.

Breaking News Photography

– for a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs.

Feature Photography

1921 Fiction Prize: Columbia trustees overruled jury recommendation and awarded the prize to for The Age of Innocence instead of the recommendation of Sinclair Lewis for Main Street.[33]

Edith Wharton

of journalist Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize.

Call for revocation

Call for revocation of journalist 's 1946 Pulitzer Prize.

William L. Laurence

1941 Novel Prize: The advisory board elected to overrule the jury and recommended by Ernest Hemingway. However, Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler implored the committee to reconsider, citing the potential association between the university and the novel's frank sexual content; instead, no award was given.[32]: 118  Twelve years later, Hemingway was awarded the 1953 Fiction Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

1957 Biography Prize: The purported writer of , U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy, was believed to have had most of the book for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in Biography ghostwritten for him.[34] Journalist Drew Pearson claimed on an episode of The Mike Wallace Interview which aired in December 1957[35] that "John F. Kennedy is the only man in history that I know who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book that was ghostwritten for him" and that his speechwriter Ted Sorensen was the book's actual author, though his claim later was retracted by the show's network, ABC, after Kennedy's father threatened to sue.[34] Herbert Parmet also determined that the book was in fact mostly ghostwritten, writing in his 1980 book Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy that although Kennedy did oversee the production and provided for the direction and message of the book, it was in fact Sorensen who provided most of the work that went into the end product.[36] Sorenson himself would later admit in his 2008 autobiography, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, that he did in fact write "a first draft of most of the chapters" and "helped choose the words of many of its sentences".[37][38] In addition to the ghostwriting controversy, it was also determined two of the eight U.S. Senators profiled in the book, Edmund G. Ross and Lucius Lamar, did not actually match what the book glorified them as.[39][40]

Profiles in Courage

1960 Fiction Prize: the jury committee recommended that the award be given to 's Henderson the Rain King, but the advisory board overrode that recommendation and awarded it to Allen Drury's Advise and Consent.[41][42][43][44]

Saul Bellow

1962 Biography Prize: Citizen Hearst: A Biography of by W. A. Swanberg was recommended by the jury and advisory board but overturned by the trustees of Columbia University (then charged with final ratification of the prizes) because its subject, Hearst, was not an "eminent example of the biographer's art as specified in the prize definition."[45]

William Randolph Hearst

1974 Fiction Prize: by Thomas Pynchon was recommended by the three-member fiction jury, but the advisory board overturned that decision and no award was given by the trustees.[46]

Gravity's Rainbow

Shortly after receiving a for Roots: The Saga of an American Family in the spring of 1977, Alex Haley was charged with plagiarism in separate lawsuits by Harold Courlander and Margaret Walker Alexander. Courlander, an anthropologist and novelist, charged that Roots was copied largely from his novel The African (1967). Walker claimed that Haley had plagiarized from her Civil War-era novel Jubilee (1966). Legal proceedings in each case were concluded late in 1978. Courlander's suit was settled out of court for $650,000 (equivalent to $3 million in 2023) and an acknowledgment from Haley that certain passages within Roots were copied from The African.[47] Walker's case was dismissed by the court, which, in comparing the content of Roots with that of Jubilee, found that "no actionable similarities exist between the works."[48][49]

Special Citation

1981 Feature Writing Prize: staff writer Janet Cooke returned the award after an investigation by the newspaper found she fabricated her prize-winning story "Jimmy's World", a profile of an eight-year-old heroin addict in Washington, D.C.

Washington Post

1994 History Prize: 's Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK, Lawrence Friedman's Crime and Punishment in American History and Joel Williamson's William Faulkner and Southern History were nominated unanimously for the award; however, no award was given.[50] The decision not to give an award to one of the three books created a public controversy. One of the 19 members of the Pulitzer Board, John Dotson, said that all of the three nominated books were "flawed in some way." But another board member, Edward Seaton, editor of The Manhattan Mercury, disagreed, saying it was "unfortunate" that no award had been given.[51]

Gerald Posner

2010 Drama Prize: The musical Next to Normal received the award[52] despite not having been among the jury-provided nominees.[53][54]

Tony-winning

2020 Feature Photography Prize: The citation to , Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of the Associated Press caused controversy.[55][56][57] It was taken by some as questioning "India's legitimacy over Kashmir" as it had used the word "independence" in regard to revocation of Article 370.[57]

Channi Anand

2020 Commentary Prize: An association of conservative scholars called for the revocation of ' award for "The 1619 Project" after the New York Times substantially softened claims that the prime motivation behind the American Revolution was the preservation of slavery, following public criticism from historians.[58][59] A Northwestern history professor and fact-checker for the project, herself an African-American, wrote that she told Times editors this assertion was inaccurate before the project was published.[60]

Nikole Hannah-Jones

2020 International Reporting Prize: Russian journalist , editor-in-chief of independent Russian media outlet Proekt (Project), said that at least two New York Times articles in the entry repeated findings of Proekt's articles published a few months before.[61]

Roman Badanin

Criticism and studies[edit]

Some critics of the Pulitzer Prize have accused the organization of favoring those who support liberal causes or oppose conservative causes. Conservative columnist L. Brent Bozell Jr. said that the Pulitzer Prize has a "liberal legacy", particularly in its prize for commentary.[62] He pointed to a 31-year period in which only five conservatives won prizes for commentary. 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary Kathleen Parker wrote, "It's only because I'm a conservative basher that I'm now recognized."[63] Alexander Theroux describes the Pulitzer Prize as "an eminently silly award, [that] has often been handed out as a result of pull and political log-rolling, and that to some of the biggest frauds and fools alike."[64]


A 2012 academic study by journalism professors Yong Volz of the University of Missouri and Francis Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong found "that only 27% of Pulitzer winners since 1991 were females, while newsrooms are about 33% female."[65] The researchers concluded female winners were more likely to have traditional academic experience, such as attendance at Ivy League schools, metropolitan upbringing, or employment with an elite publication such as The New York Times. The findings suggest a higher level of training and connectedness are required for a female applicant to be awarded the prize, compared to male counterparts.[66]

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Official website

at Columbia University – Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Pulitzer Prizes Collection, 1917–2017

(browsable by year) – African American Literature Book Club

Writers of African Descent to Win Pulitzer Prizes (includes Finalists)