Pulitzer Prize plugs in
As a journalist, you know you’ve arrived when the Pulitzer Committee comes knocking. Online journalism has arrived. The Pulitzer Committee is now accepting submissions from online-only publications, ending print’s decades-old monopoly on America’s most prestigious journalism award. Welcome to the big leagues, Salon.com, et al. This puts you on the same level as the New York Times and Washington Post. But does that mean anything to readers? Awards are mainly an industry’s way of patting itself on the back. They often have little bearing on how well or poorly a publication serves its readers. Still, I’m going to say yes, the Pulitzer decision does make a difference for readers. It’s a sign that the center of gravity in the newspaper and magazine journalism is shifting to a more balanced spot between print and online. Print journalism, as I wrote in an earlier post, is coughing up blood like a gaffed marlin. Nevertheless, society needs the content that print journalism produces to keep business and government honest. The Pulitzer Committee’s decision means that the lords and ladies of the newsprint are thinking of the content first – not whether people read it on a screen or on a dead tree. Check in here to read Editor & Publisher’s coverage of the decision, and here for New York Times coverage.
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