2010 Pulitzer Prizes Celebrate Emerging Trends in Journalism
In our post on the Top 10 Works of Journalism of the decade, we posited that it was not a matter of if but when a non-traditional journalist took home a Pulitzer Prize.
This week Pro Publica, a non-profit newsroom, was honored for “The Deadly Choices at Memorial,” its excellent investigative coverage of the struggles and heroism of a New Orleans’ hospital during Hurricane Katrina.
Pro Publica’s win may be a harbinger for journalism’s future. Co-published with New York Times Magazine, it sets a precedent for successful collaboration between new and traditional media.
We’ve seen that such collaboration is becoming more and more common: the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London will partner with British outlets to provide them with pieces rooted in “deep reporting.”
2009 was the first year that non-traditional media was considered for Pulitzer Prizes. A year later, these web nominations have doubled, from fifty to 100. Last year, no works by non-traditional media were honored with a prize.
This year, Pro Publica not only won but was also a finalist for the Public Service Prize. Moreover, Mark Fiore of SFGate.com was honored for his animated cartoon, which, the Prize committee noted “set a high standard for an emerging form of commentary.”
Despite Pro Publica’s and Mark Fiore’s wins, the majority of prizes remained in the hands of the “big names” in traditional journalism—the New York Times and Washington Post.
On notable exception, Virginia’s the Bristol Herald Courier was honored for public service reporting in their coverage of natural-gas royalties withheld from local landowners. A landmark of “deep investigative journalism” the Herald Courier’s win is in defiance of the widely held belief that newspapers, especially small dailies, are no longer capable or interested in producing this kind of journalism.
Herald Courier editor J. Todd Foster told the Los Angeles Times that this story “showed that newspapers would survive in some form. ‘Nobody else is going to do this sort of reporting.’” Foster’s statement is worth pondering, will local papers become the standard bearers of investigative journalism?
A hearty congratulations to all the Pulitzer Prize winners from your fans at Perfect Market. We believe the future of journalism lies in understanding the intent of the users. The Pulitzer Prizes remind us that, proprietary technology and algorithms aside, what users want (and what we all need) is quality and investigative journalism in the public interest. Kudos to our partners for their well-deserved honors.
— Lee Glandorf
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