Monthly Archive for May, 2006

OK, that’s a little harsh, but it needed to be said. In yesterday’s Miami Herald he made an uniformed idiotic argument that the Pulitzers should be eliminated because they only award rich large circ papers and only give a couple token awards to smaller papers. As the son of a multiplu prize winner who has never worked for a large paper but has worked at three small papers (two of which have won pulitzers, Times Picayune and the clarion ledger) I find this argument invalid. First off I am not any where near the writer my father is so this argument may also be flawed, but i need to get it out there. Mr. Wasserman claims the awards are saved for the few large papers and they don’t recognize small papers with quality product. Plus he thinks the public service award is only for those papers who have been injured in some way. Wrong! In 1997 when my father’s series (co-written by four writers), “Oceans of Trouble,” won the Pulitzer Prize for Public service for the Picayune the paper was not flooded or otherwise effected by damage fo some sort. The Picayune decided to invest a number of months in a well thought out series lead by writers and editors including those who had been finalists before (my father had two series, one on chemical plants in louisiana and one on corruption in state gov’t {I think} before that one reach finalist status for the pulitzer). Large papers aren’t the only ones who invest time and effort in good writers over the long term. Maybe if more papers would decide to devote their resources to at least one really good series each year more papers would win, but if you don’t try you don’t win. Look at the LATimes. They were a perennial favorite, but this year… nothing.

Edward Wasserman you are an idiot.