The Pulitzer Prize

If your like me, than you have heard of the Pulitzer Prize, but never really knew what it was all about. The Pulitzer Prize is a very important award for my interest in the field of journalism . It is an opportunity to be recognized, and rewarded for your work in a specific field.

What’s so special about a Pulitzer Prize?
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. The Pulitzer Prizes are administered by Columbia University, in New York City.

Describe the prize’s organization:
In the late 19th century, Joseph Pulitzer stood out as the very embodiment of American journalism.  Pulitzer was the first to call for the training of journalists at the university level in a school of journalism. When Pulitzer wrote his will, provisions were made for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prize, as an incentive to excellence. He specified 4 awards in journalism, 4 in letters and drama, 1 for education, and 4 for traveling scholarships.  Since his passing, changes in the awards have been made.

The award process: 
The Pulitzer Prize only evaluates those works in the media that have been entered with a $50 entry fee.

The award process(usually a year long) begins early in  the year with the judges being appointed. Usually there are 102 judges, who serve on 20 separate juries and are asked to make three nominations in each of the 21 categories. By February, the administrator’s office in the Columbia school of journalism has received about 1,100 journalism entries. In early March, 77 editors, publishers, writers, and educators gather to judge the entries in the 14 journalism categories.
More than 2,400 entries are submitted each year in the Pulitzer Prize competition, and only 21 awards are normally made (yearly).  In 20 of these, each winner receives a $10,000 cash award. The winner of the public service category in the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal. The gold medal always goes to a newspaper, although an individual may be named in citation.

  
(The gold medal awarded to the winner of the public service category in journalism.)


Two recent winners:

Public Service: For a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalistic resources.
The 2011 winner for Public Service in Journalism was The Los Angeles Time for reporting by Jeffery Gottlieb, and Ruben Vives, who uncovered municipal corruption in the small California city of Bell.
http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2011-Public-Service

Fiction: For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with the American life.
The 2011 winner for fiction in Letters, Drama, and Music was awarded to  “A Visit From the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan.  “A Visit From the Goon Squad” is an investigation of growing up, and growing old in the digital-age.
http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2011-Fiction

Some Famous Winners of the Pulitzer Prize Include:

• John F. Kennedy (Biography)
• Harper Lee and Earnest Hemmingway (Fiction) 
• Robert Frost (Poetry)

For more information on the Pulitzer Prize visit their website: http://www.pulitzer.org