April 18th, 2011 / 4:12 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Roxane Gay—
The 2011 Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded. In fiction, Jennifer Egan won for A Visit From the Goon Squad. Other finalists were The Privileges by Jonathan Dee and The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee. If your book title begins with the word “the” statistics show you have a 66% chance of not being awarded a professional accolade. Oddly, no award was given in the Breaking News category which surprised me. One of the finalists, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, had some amazing coverage of the Haiti earthquake. No explanation was given though reports say the journalists in the newsrooms of all three finalists were overhead lamenting, “We were robbed but we’re not sure why.”
I’d be interested in hearing why these people – http://www.pulitzer.org/jurors/2011-Breaking-News-Reporting – didn’t think any of the three finalists for the ‘breaking news’ prize rated the ten grand + celebration. (- or can a prize jury be deadlocked and thereby go to a ‘no decision’??)
I would too. I’ve only read one of the three finalists so I cannot say for sure but what I read was exceptional. I have to believe the other two finalists were of similar quality. It would be interesting to know more about what goes into making that kind of decision.
Yes, I figured so from your mention (and joke).
A different jury did give a prize for ‘breaking news photography‘ – for coverage of the Haiti crisis (by a Wash. Post team) – , so it’s hard to credit some weird prejudice against, what, covering furr’n earthquakes. My first – bedrock cynical – thought was ‘professional rivalry’ – between papers or services or even individual reporters, but the juries are personally identified — and besides, without good evidence, ‘rivalry’ sounds unbelievably unprofessional. Maybe there’s some embarrassing-but-innocuous explanation – miscommunication, deadline neglect, or some such. It’s not really much $, but it’s a high-profile prize – one that brings attention to stories that otherwise get buried by the-next-and-the-next-and-the-next story.
?
Yes, I figured so from your mention (and joke).
A different jury did give a prize for ‘breaking news photography‘ – for coverage of the Haiti crisis (by a Wash. Post team) – , so it’s hard to credit some weird prejudice against, what, covering furr’n earthquakes. My first – bedrock cynical – thought was ‘professional rivalry’ – between papers or services or even individual reporters, but the juries are personally identified — and besides, without good evidence, ‘rivalry’ sounds unbelievably unprofessional. Maybe there’s some embarrassing-but-innocuous explanation – miscommunication, deadline neglect, or some such. It’s not really much $, but it’s a high-profile prize – one that brings attention to stories that otherwise get buried by the-next-and-the-next-and-the-next story.
?
Yes, I figured so from your mention (and joke).
A different jury did give a prize for ‘breaking news photography‘ – for coverage of the Haiti crisis (by a Wash. Post team) – , so it’s hard to credit some weird prejudice against, what, covering furr’n earthquakes. My first – bedrock cynical – thought was ‘professional rivalry’ – between papers or services or even individual reporters, but the juries are personally identified — and besides, without good evidence, ‘rivalry’ sounds unbelievably unprofessional. Maybe there’s some embarrassing-but-innocuous explanation – miscommunication, deadline neglect, or some such. It’s not really much $, but it’s a high-profile prize – one that brings attention to stories that otherwise get buried by the-next-and-the-next-and-the-next story.
?