Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes are an U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. The award was established by Jewish-Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City. Awards are made in categories relating to journalism, arts, letters and fiction. Reports and photographs by United States–based newspapers, magazines and news organizations (including news websites) that "[publish] regularly" are eligible for the journalism prize. Each winner receives a certificate and $15,000 in cash (as of 2024), except in the Public Service category, where a gold medal is awarded and goes to a newspaper, although an individual may be named in the citation.
History
- In writing his 1904 will, which made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence, Pulitzer specified solely four awards in journalism, four in books and drama, one for education, and five traveling scholarships. Initally, three of the scholarships were awarded on the recommendation of the Faculty of Journalism at Columbia to graduating students; two of the scholarships—in art and music, respectively—were administered externally by a jury comprised of faculty from the Columbia Department of Music and the Institute of Musical Art (music) and the National Academy of Design (art). Like the other awards, the latter two scholarships were open to all music and art students in America. (Currently, five scholarships of $7,500 are awarded to graduating students from the School of Journalism.) In journalism, prizes were to recognize "the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by any American newspaper during the preceding year" (a gold medal worth $500 with no monetary component); "the best editorial article written during the year, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in the right direction" ($500); and "the best example of a reporter's work during the year, the test being strict accuracy, terseness, the accomplishment of some public good commanding public attention and respect" ($1,000). (A $1,000 prize for the best history of services rendered to the public by the American press in the preceding year was only awarded once; similarly, a $1,000 prize for a paper on the development of the School of Journalism was never awarded due to a dearth of competitors.) In letters, prizes were to go to an American novel ($1,000), an original American play performed in New York ($1,000), a book on the history of the United States ($2,000) and an American biography ($1,000). But, sensitive to the dynamic progression of his society, Pulitzer made provision for broad changes in the system of awards. He established an overseer advisory board and willed it "power in its discretion to suspend or to change any subject or subjects, substituting, however, others in their places, if in the judgment of the board such suspension, changes, or substitutions shall be conducive to the public good or rendered advisable by public necessities, or by reason of change of time." He also empowered the board to withhold any award where entries fell below its standards of excellence. The assignment of power to the board was such that it could also overrule the recommendations for awards made by the juries subsequently set up in each of the categories. Thus, the Plan of Award, which has governed the prizes since their inception in 1917, has been revised frequently. The Board, later renamed the Pulitzer Prize Board, has increased the number of awards to 23 and introduced poetry, music, photography, memoir and audio journalism as subjects, while adhering to the spirit of the founder's will and its intent.
Award changes beginning in 1997
- The Board typically exercised its broad discretion in 1997, the 150th anniversary of Pulitzer's birth, in two fundamental respects. It took a significant step in recognition of the growing importance of work being done by newspapers in online journalism. Beginning with the 1999 competition, the Board sanctioned the submission by newspapers of online presentations as supplements to print exhibits in the Public Service category. The board left open the distinct possibility of further inclusions in the Pulitzer process of online journalism as the electronic medium developed. Thus, with the 2006 competition, the Board allowed online content in all of its journalism categories. For 2009, the competition was expanded to include online-only news organizations. For 2011, the Plan of Award was revised to encourage more explicitly the entry of online and multimedia material, with the board seeking to honor the best work in whatever form is the most effective. And for 2012, the board adopted an all-digital entry and judging system, replacing the historic reliance on submission of scrapbooks. Full eligibility was expanded to print and digital magazines in 2016. The other major change was in Music, a category that was added to the Plan of Award for prizes in 1943. The prize always had gone to composers of classical music. The definition and entry requirements of the Music category beginning with the 1998 competition were broadened to attract a wider range of American music. In an indication of the trend toward bringing mainstream music into the Pulitzer process, the 1997 Prize went to Wynton Marsalis's "Blood on the Fields," which has strong jazz elements, the first such award. In Music, the board also took tacit note of the criticism leveled at its predecessors for failure to cite two of the country's foremost jazz composers. It bestowed posthumous Special Citations on George Gershwin (marking the 1998 centennial celebration of his birth) and Duke Ellington (on his 1999 centennial year). In 2004, the Board further broadened the definition of the prize and the makeup of its music juries, resulting in 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 award. Prefiguring his later recognition as a Nobel laureate in literature, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan received a Special Citation in 2008. The Board also awarded posthumous Special Citations to jazz performer-composers Thelonious Monk in 2006 and John Coltrane in 2007; country music lodestar Hank Williams in 2010; and soul music pioneer Aretha Franklin in 2019. In 2018, Kendrick Lamar became the first hip-hop artist to receive the Music Prize.[1]
