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Story broken online wins Pulitzer

A story first broken on the Internet won a Pulitzer Prize this week -- the first time CyberJournalist.net believes this has ever happened.

The Willamette Week's Nigel Jaquiss won the Pulitzer Prize this week for investigative reporting for his work exposing a sexual relationship between former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt and a 14-year-old girl.

After a two-month investigation, the Week sent Goldschmidt a letter summarizing the story the paper had prepared and asked for comment. The next day, Goldschmidt resigned from the state's board of higher education and the Oregon Electric Utility Co. Fearing the weekly paper would be scooped by the local daily, The Willamette Week published the allegations online.

"Given our weekly production cycle, had we not posted, we might have had a harder time convincing people we broke the story," Jaquiss says.

The Pulitzer Prizes -- a newspaper award -- only allow online materials to be submitted as part of entries in the Public Service category, so technically the print version of the story won the award.

Still, Jaquiss and the Willamette Week deserve kudos for recognizing the value of the Web and using it to help ensure that the Willamette Week -- and not the daily Portland Oregonian -- broke the news first. It would be nice if the Pulitzer committee could recognize that as well.

This is yet another great example of why the Pulitzer Prizes need to revamp the rules to allow online material to be included in entries in every category.

Last year, for the first time a major convergence project won a Pulitzer Prize: The New York Times earned a Public Service award for articles detailing deaths and injuries among American workers and showing how employers broke basic safety rules with impunity. The Times got the Pulitzer, but it was part of a massive convergence effort with the CBC and PBS Frontline. (More details here)

But even though this was an amazing convergence effort and won the Public Service category, the Web components were not part of the winning entry in this case. Pulitzer administrator Sig Gissler told CyberJournalist.net last year that online elements weren't included because the submission was originally made in the investigative reporting category -- where Web components are not permitted -- and was moved to the Public Service category by the board that administers the awards.

The first time CyberJournalist.net is aware of online material being included in a winning Pulitzer entry is the 2001 National Reporting prize The New York Times won for its "Race in America" package. The entry had been originally submitted in the Public Service category -- including the excellent online package -- and then was moved to the National Reporting category. Technically the online material no longer counted, but at least one online journalist was included in the official citation.

There is no logical reason why the Pulitzers should only accept online material in the Public Service category. We've reached a point in the news industry where online work is integral to the great journalism being published in print. It's time for the Pulitzer Prizes to recognize that, fix the rules and allow online elements in all entries.

Apr 05, 2005 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)

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