Pulitzer Prize

Joseph Pulitzer became the face of American journalism in the late 19th century. Born in Hungary, Pulitzer was a tough man who was the most skilled of newspaper publishers; a passionate fighter against dishonest governments; a fierce, hawkish competitor who did not shrink from sensationalism in the battle for circulation; and a visionary who made great contributions to his profession.

His innovative New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reinvented newspaper journalism. Pulitzer was the first to call for the training of journalists in university journalism schools. The Pulitzer Prizes’ lasting influence on journalism, literature, music, and theater is undoubtedly due to his visionary acumen.

Pulitzer's Flexible Will

Pulitzer provided for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes to encourage excellence in his 1904 will, which designated only four journalism prizes, four book and drama prizes, one education prize, and five travel scholarships. Initially, three scholarships were awarded to graduates on the recommendation of Columbia University's School of Journalism; two scholarships - one each for art and music - were externally administered by a jury of faculty members from Columbia University's Department of Music and the Academy of Musical Arts (music) and the National Academy of Design (arts). Like the other prizes, the latter two scholarships were open to all music and art students in the United States. (Five scholarships are currently awarded to journalism school graduates, each worth $7,500.)

In the field of journalism, the awards recognize "the most impartial and valuable public service rendered by an American newspaper during the preceding year" (a gold medal, valued at $500, excluding any prize money); "the best editorial article of the year, distinguished by clarity of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and ability to influence public opinion" ($500); and "the best example of journalistic work of the year, distinguished by rigor, simplicity, and a desire to serve the public interest and to command public attention and respect" ($1,000). (The $1,000 prize for the best historical essay in the previous year for American journalism’s service to the public had been awarded only once; similarly, the $1,000 essay prize for the development of journalism schools had never been awarded because of too few competitors.) The prizes were given in the letter to an American novel ($1,000), an original American play performed in New York ($1,000), a book on American history ($2,000), and an American biography ($1,000).

However, Pulitzer, acutely aware of the dynamics of society, prepared for extensive changes in the prize system. He established an oversight advisory committee and gave it “the power, in its discretion, to discontinue or alter any subject, but to substitute for it some other subject, if the committee deems such discontinuance, alteration, or substitution desirable in the public interest or due to public need or the changing times.” He also authorized the committee to refuse to award any prize if the entry did not meet its standards of excellence. The board was given the power to also overrule the recommendations of the juries subsequently established in each category.

Thus, the program for administering the prize has been continually amended since its inception in 1917. The board (later renamed the Pulitzer Prize Board) increased the number of prizes to 23 and added poetry, music, photography, memoir, and audio journalism as prize subjects, while adhering to the wishes and intent of the founders.

Changes to the prizes since 1997

In 1997, the 150th anniversary of Pulitzer’s birth, the board exercised broad discretion in two fundamental areas. The board took the important step of recognizing the growing importance of the work done by newspapers in the online news arena. Beginning with the 1999 competition, the board approved newspapers to submit online presentations as a supplement to print in the public service categories. With the growth of electronic media, the board left open the obvious possibility of further inclusion of the Pulitzer online news process. Thus, in the 2006 competition, the board allowed online content in all of its news categories. In 2009, the competition was expanded to include only online news organizations. In 2011, the awards program was revised to more explicitly encourage entries from online and multimedia materials, with the committee seeking to recognize the best work in the most effective format. In 2012, the committee adopted an all-digital entry and judging system, replacing the past reliance on scrapbook submissions. In 2016, full eligibility was expanded to include both print and digital magazines.

Another major change was the music category, which had been added to the awards program in 1943. The prize had always been given to composers of classical music. Beginning with the 1998 competition, the definition of the music category and entry requirements were expanded to appeal to a wider range of American music. The 1997 prize, awarded to Wynton Marsalis's Blood on the Field, was the first of its kind and signaled a trend toward mainstream music inclusion in the Pulitzer Prizes, which had a strong jazz component. On the music front, the committee also acquiesced to criticism of its predecessors for failing to cite two of the country's preeminent jazz composers. It awards posthumous Special Citations to George Gershwin (on the centennial of his birth in 1998) and Duke Ellington (on the centennial of his birth in 1999). In 2004, the committee further expanded the definition of the prize and the composition of the music jury, allowing for a greater diversity of entries. In 2007, the music prize went to Ornette Coleman for "Sound Grammar," the first live jazz recording to win the prize. Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan received a Special Citation in 2008, foreshadowing his later Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee has also given Special Citations to jazz performer-composer Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane in 2006 and 2007, respectively; to country music star Hank Williams in 2010, and to soul pioneer Aretha Franklin in 2019. In 2018, Kendrick Lamar became the first hip-hop artist to win the music prize.

Award Controversy

Over the years, the Pulitzer Prize Board has at times been the target of criticism for awarding or not awarding prizes. There have also been controversies when the board has made decisions that go against the board's opinion. This is inevitable given the subjective nature of the awards process. The board is not swayed by popular opinion. Many, if not most, of the books that win have not made bestseller lists, and many of the winning plays have been played off-Broadway or in local theaters.

In the field of journalism, major newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post have won many awards, but the board has also often given a helping hand to smaller, lesser-known newspapers. In 1995, the public service award went to the Virgin Islands Daily News in St. Thomas for exposing the connection between the region's rampant crime rate and corruption in the local criminal justice system. In 2005, the investigative reporting award went to the Willamette Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Portland, Oregon, for exposing a former governor's long-hidden sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl. In 2008, the feature photography award went to The Concord (NH) Monitor for its portrayal of a family coping with a parent’s terminal illness. In 2010, the public service award went to The Herald-Courier, a small daily in Bristol, Virginia, for its exposure of mismanagement of gas royalties by thousands of landowners. In 2013, the national reporting award went to InsideClimate News, a small digital news organization.

In its letters, the committee has become less conservative over the years on matters of taste. In 1963, the drama jury nominated Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but the committee found the script not “uplifting” enough, a complaint tied to arguments over sexual permissiveness and vulgar dialogue. In 1993, the award went to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: The Millennium Approaches, a play that explored gay life in the early days of the AIDS crisis, before the spread of the disease was widely understood and effective treatments were available. Kushner does not shy away from vulgar language, unlike earlier playwrights who could lose the prize for cursing. In a similarly contentious matter of taste, the committee declined to give the fiction prize to Ernest Hemingway in 1941 for For Whom the Bell Tolls, then awarded it to him in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea.

Despite these controversies, the committee has generally adhered to a policy of secrecy since its inception, refusing to publicly debate or defend its decisions. These challenges have not diminished the Pulitzer Prize's reputation as the nation's most prestigious award and the most sought-after honor in journalism, literature, and music. The prize is seen as a major incentive for quality journalism and draws worldwide attention to American achievements in books, plays, and music.

Announcements

The Pulitzer Prizes are officially announced each spring, stating that the prizes are awarded by the president of Columbia University on the advice of the Pulitzer Prize Committee. This statement derives from Pulitzer's will, which established Columbia University as the center for the administration of the prizes. In fact, today, an independent committee makes all decisions related to the prizes. In his will, Pulitzer left $2 million to Columbia University for the establishment of a school of journalism, a quarter of which was to be used "for awards or scholarships to encourage public service, public morals, American literature, and the advancement of education."

In doing so, he stated, "I am deeply interested in the development and advancement of journalism, a profession I have followed all my life, and consider it a noble one, with an incomparable influence on the minds and morals of the people. I hope to help attract young men of character and ability to the profession, and to help those already engaged in it to obtain the highest moral and intellectual training." Pulitzer himself received little help in his climb to the pinnacle of American journalism. He was proud of being a self-made man, but it was probably his struggles as a young reporter that gave him the desire to receive professional training.