Washington Post wins 6 Pulitzers

The Walter Reed stuff didn't even win first place in the Virginia state contest for series of news stories. Going in, I figured I knew the winner of at least one category... I guess I didn't. Which makes me wonder why I keep entering.

 

I fucking hated that Weingarten story. I thought it was elitist crap.
I'm stunned.

 

If you thought it was elitist crap, it really must have been off the charts.

 

As a small contributor to a Pulitzer Prize won by our paper a couple years back, I give my congrats to the folks at the WaPo.

(I never, ever woulda thought I'd be able to write that sentence.)

 

I'm not saying the Pulitzers are rigged and don't award great work, but it is interesting that some stories that win don't fare as well in competitions when the work is judged somewhat blindly by out of state panels that don't have any connections to the work being judged.

 

So...are you saying that automatically means the stories were unworthy of a Pulitzer?

 

The Pulitzers are a circle jerk for our "leading" newspapers. That's not to say some of those honored didn't do unbelievably outstanding work, because they did. But as far as impact goes, Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe won the Pulitzer for criticism. I read the Globe daily, and I don't know who he is.
The law of averages says the Times, Post, LA Times, etc. do not do 90 percent of the best newspaper stories in the U.S. each year. But that's how the Pulitzers come out. It's a bag job.

 

Oh, I think they have the resources to do certain kinds of stories better than anyone else. And for criticism, they tend to have people who are better qualified in those disciplines than most. It's not their fault that most papers have given up covering more than minimum.

 

I'm saying I don't know how in the hell it didn't win first in the state contest. I thought it was a complete joke it didn't win.

That, in turn, made me question why I keep sending entries to them.

Sorry for the confusion. Should've used the blue font.

 

Are you sure they entered? I have a feeling that some papers take a "Pulitzer, Polk, etc., or Bust!" attitude when it comes to national stories like this.

Does the NYT, for example, enter state competitions? I don't know - I'm asking.

 

Oh! K. That makes more sense. No problem.

 

How drunk do you think the WaPo publisher is getting?