Good Morning Lowcountry

Prizes r us

Journalists are slagged all the time ... by readers, politicians, each other. It's OK, we can take it. On journalism's Big Day on Monday, when the Pulitzer Prizes were announced, alt-media grouches asked who should care, except journalists.

"There's no real science or even fairness behind the picking of winners and losers," wrote Jack Shafer of Slate, "with the prizes handed out according to a formula composed of one part log-rolling, two parts merit, three parts 'we owe him one,' and four parts random distribution."

GMLc looks on the journalism Pulitzers not as self-congratulatory show business by the newspaper industry but as a way to shine a light.

Writers aren't without ego, but those journalists who won the prize this year would be the first to say that they matter less than the story or the photograph they brought to the stage of public awareness and the glare of public scrutiny.

Among The Washington Post's six Pulitzers this year were prizes for reporting on the Virginia Tech shootings, the unprecedented power of Vice President Dick Cheney, the mistreatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the hidden world of private security contractors in Iraq.

The New York Times won for an investigation into toxic products from China. The Chicago Tribune staff won for exposing bad government regulation of toys, car seats and cribs. Editorial cartoonists and photographers also won Pulitzers for focusing attention without words.

Journalists care about things like prizes because we work in an industry that has its back against the wall. With corporate sales, buyouts, staff cuts, a tightening of resources, a decline in ad revenue and the usual rising cost of newsprint, the Dead Trees edition of the news, as we call the product you are holding, seems doomed.

Citizens care (at least Citizen GMLc does; we'll give up our newspaper when they pry it from our cold, dead fingers) because the Pulitzers give us a chance to go back and read, or re-read, that story or find that picture, with just a few clicks.

If you missed them, the stories on Walter Reed, Virginia Tech, Dick Cheney, and contractors in Iraq are at tinyurl.com/3uflbg.

The stories on defective toys, cribs and car seats are at tinyurl.com/6jp85y.

The stories on dangerous and poisonous pharmaceutical ingredients from China are at tinyurl.com/69ypqt.

The photo by Adrees Latif of Reuters reprinted here won the Pulitzer this year for breaking news photography.

It shows videographer Kenji Nagai of Agence France Presse trying to capture the scene as he lies wounded in front of a Burmese soldier holding a rifle after police and military officials charged at protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, last September.

The 50-year-old Japanese journalist was shot by soldiers as they fired to disperse the crowd. Nagai later died.

Every newspaper that is online archives its best work online so that you can go back and reference or revisit it. The P&C's top stories of 2007, those on the Sofa Super Store fire that killed nine Charleston firefighters, are posted at charleston.net/news/firefighters/. The P&C's photos of the year are at charleston.net/2007top10/.

Journalism also has a component in the upcoming 2008 Webby Awards, which will be announced May 6. News nominees are BBC News (bbc.co.uk), CNN.com (cnn.com), Discovery News (dsc.discovery.com), NYTimes.com (nytimes.com) and Wired.com (Wired.com).

Newspaper nominees are Guardian News and Media (guardian.co.uk), NYTimes.com (nytimes.com), The Independent (independent.co.uk), The Wall Street Journal Online (online.wsj.com/home/us) and Variety.com (variety.com).

The Webbys are a little bit more fun than the Pulitzers. They have more than 100 categories, including restaurants, retail, schools, science, self-promotion and personal blogs. There is even a category for Weird. Find all the nominees at webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=12.

GMLc
Call 937-5564. Write gmlc@postandcourier.com. Find the blog at gmlc.typepad.com.