◆ Xu Xunlei
A
Joseph Pulitzer, the "father of the modern American newspaper", once said a passionate and unforgettable quote:
"Always fight for progress and reform; Injustice and corruption will never be tolerated; always fight against politicians who are demagogic by all political parties; never attached to a party; forever against the privileged classes and those who plunder the public interest; never lose empathy for the poor; always due diligence to the public welfare; Never settle for a single print of news; Always be absolutely independent; Never be afraid to lash out at bad things – whether it's the rich who do it by stealing or the poor who are whimsical about it. ”
The Pulitzer spirit is a fighting spirit of journalism, which is fully embodied in his very "bullish" words, and also in the "Pulitzer Prize" award-winning works established in his name.
B
According to a report by the WeChat official account of the U.S. Embassy in China on May 7, 2024: On May 6, local time in the United States, the Pulitzer Prize Committee announced the winners and finalists of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize, honoring the best American works in the fields of journalism, books, theater and music.
Five journalists from ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism organization in the United States, have won the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor for public service. Their "groundbreaking and ambitious" reporting exposed how a small group of powerful billionaires coerced the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court with expensive and extravagant gifts and vacation itineraries. The report drew attention to the professional ethics of U.S. Supreme Court justices, prompting the Supreme Court to adopt its first code of conduct in 2023.
The New York Times won this year's Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. This set of reports on the Kazakh-Israeli war covers three main events: Hamas's raid on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israeli military's intelligence failures, and the Israeli army's large-scale counterattack in Gaza. The report was "extensive and revealing".
The Breaking News Photo Award was won by the Reuters photography team. Their award-winning photographs document the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7 and the devastation wreaked in Gaza in the early weeks of the Israeli-Israeli conflict.
This year, the Pulitzer Prize Committee also presented special contributions to journalists and journalists who courageously covered the conflict in Gaza. "In the previous two years, the Pulitzer Prize jury has given special recognition to journalists who have reported from the wars in Ukraine and Afghanistan. This year, however, the Commission decided to recognize the courageous work of journalists and media workers covering the war in Gaza. In a horrific environment, many journalists lost their lives while reporting. The war also claimed the lives of numerous poets and writers. The Pulitzer Prize honors categories such as journalism, art, and literature, and we commemorate the disappearance of a valuable record of human history. ”
Washington Post columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. "This set of comments was written with passion by the author at great personal risk while in prison" – he was imprisoned by the Russian authorities in April 2022 for speaking out against Russia's war in Ukraine. Despite being behind bars, he continues to write, exposing the costs of Russia's war in Ukraine and insisting on calling for a democratic future for Russia.
Over the years, Pulitzer columns have increasingly shown a tendency to write stories, framing news commentary in the form of "story commentary", breaking the logical and rational form of traditional commentary, and often using time clues to plan the layout of the article. And focus on negative social events, pay attention to detailed descriptions. Kara-Murza's commentary is structured by personal events, and has a unique temperament and charm, as can be seen in the title of the first article in the group, "Russians live in a terrible and distorted reality".
As always, the traditional serious media is still the biggest winner of the Pulitzer Prize, while in-depth investigation and in-depth commentary are the most popular. Countless people have repeated Pulitzer's famous quote that shocked the past and the present, and I can't help but repeat it again: "If a country is a ship sailing on the sea, the journalist is the lookout from the bow of the ship." He had to observe everything on the endless sea, examine the unpredictable storms and shallows and reefs on the sea, and issue the alarm in time. ”
In addition to the 15 journalism prizes, the Pulitzer Prize also has eight literary and artistic awards. American writer Jayne Anne Phillips' novel The Night Watch won the Fiction Award. This is a mother-daughter saga set in a post-Civil War psychiatric hospital in West Virginia, revealing the brutal scars of the American Civil War. It is worth mentioning that Chinese writer Li Yiyun's "Wednesday Child" was also shortlisted for the Fiction Award, a collection of short stories about aging and loss.
The Pulitzer Prize for memoirs or autobiography was the memoir "Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Quest for Justice," written by Christina Rivera Garza, a professor at the University of Houston born in Mexico, and starring the author's sister, who was killed by her ex-boyfriend in 1990 at the age of 20. The book is "a blend of memoirs, feminist investigative journalism, and poetic biographies."
These literary and artistic awards have received far less attention than journalism awards.
C
The Pulitzer Prize for Journalism, recognized as the highest award in global journalism, is the "Nobel Prize of Journalism".
This is the "100th Pulitzer" – the 108th in 2024. It was established by Pulitzer's will, and its first was enacted in 1917, on the eve of the 1918 flu outbreak.
Joseph Pulitzer (April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was a Hungarian-American of Jewish descent, an alien, self-taught press fan. In 1883, when he acquired Le Monde, he quickly grew the newspaper industry with his unwavering editorial philosophy and superb management methods. He advocates the truthfulness and accuracy of news, the conciseness and popularity of written expression, and attaches great importance to editorials. He is considered the founder of the "new journalism" of that era.
The bespectacled, bearded, wise Joseph Pulitzer
In 1912, Pulitzer funded the establishment of one of the first journalism schools in the United States, the Columbia University School of Journalism. The school is now the best journalism school in the United States and the world. The Journalism Prize, named after Pulitzer, has played a great role in promoting the political progress and social development of the United States for more than 100 years.
For more than a century, the more difficult times were, the more important the Pulitzer Prize became.
The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded annually by the Columbia School of Journalism, and each prize is a mere few thousand dollars, but its prestige is truly extraordinary, with more than 2,000 entries competing each year. In 2020, the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism added an "Audio Reporting Award" to the original 14 awards.
This year marks the first time since the establishment of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism that it has not been presented at Columbia University and has been awarded in the office of the Associated Press.
That's because, this spring's Columbia campus wasn't quiet; Like many American universities, many students in the assembly occupied the campus and "set up" to protest against Israel and solidarity with Palestine. For a time, "anti-Semitism" was rampant, and the police entered the campus and arrested many students for "illegal trespassing". In an interview with the New York Sun, a protest student at Columbia University said the resistance and struggle against oppression was "legitimate."
Major international events, especially wars, will not only "burn" the American press, but also affect American society and university campuses. There are no winners in war, and there are no losers in peace. The theme of "Kazakhstan-Israel War" is the focus of this year's Pulitzer Prize for Journalism, and unexpectedly, it will eventually affect the award of the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism at Columbia University.
Interestingly, student journalists covering recent protests on campuses across the United States were also honored by the Pulitzer Prize Committee: "In the spirit of press freedom, these students worked hard to document a major national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances, at all risks." ”
D
has also been changed by objective conditions, as well as the Pulitzer Prize in 2020, which can be compared. It was announced in the early morning of May 5, Beijing time, that year, and it came "a little later" than before, because the new crown epidemic swept the world, and it could only be "promulgated on the cloud".
The pandemic has made the role of journalism in public service even more prominent. Dana Canedy, the president of the Pulitzer Prize jury at the time, said that in the face of unprecedented uncertainty, journalism will never stop its pace, and journalism will always "run to the flames."
The 2020 Public Service Award, which bore the brunt of the award, was awarded to Lawlessness: A Third of Alaska's Villages Without Local Police, a series of 17 stories that are self-explanatory in the headline and published by the Anchorage Daily News.
The veteran New York Times won three awards: Investigative Reporting, International Reporting and Commentary. The winner of the Investigative Reporting Award, "They Were Scammed: How Reckless Lending Destroyed a Generation of Taxi Drivers," spoke for the vulnerable, examining the taxi industry in New York City and exposing how lenders saddled vulnerable drivers with large predatory loans that led to at least nine suicides and nearly 1,000 taxi license holders filing for bankruptcy. It is true that the dirtier the media report seems, the cleaner the society will be. The award for its criticism was: "The idea of democracy recorded in the founding of the United States is not a real democracy, it is precisely because of the struggle of African Americans that it has become a reality", which is a historical news review.
The high-profile feature writing award went to The New Yorker magazine's "Guantanamo Bay's Darkest Secrets," which chronicles the harrowing experience of a man who has been held for 10 years, describing how he was kidnapped, tortured, deprived of his liberty, and more; His writing style can be described as affectionate and nuanced. The Editorial Comics Award was also awarded to The New Yorker for "a series of character cartoons with a deceptive watercolor, sweet style and a seemingly mild style" that satirized the personality and policies of U.S. President Donald Trump. It turns out that "Heaven" is really a place where you can say it's hell.
Most of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism entries were published in 2019, so there were no new coronavirus-related reports.
And
Many traditional and serious media have not forgotten the original intention of journalism, the responsibility of journalism, and the spirit of journalistic professionalism. Beginning in the early 20th century, journalistic professionalism first emerged in the American press; Some scholars in the United States have pointed out that there are three dimensions to the professionalization of journalism: one is autonomy and autonomy; The second is a unique professional norm; The third is the public service orientation.
Journalistic professionalism is the pursuit of excellent journalism, and great journalism is the "great art": it seeks the truth, it upholds social justice, it provides explanations for the intricacies of life, it illuminates cultural elements, it promotes popular discussion, it makes the world a better place...... In the face of black clouds and storms, reporters and media with the spirit of journalistic professionalism are not shocked, afraid, frightened, or afraid.
Journalism and journalism defend "free will". Of course, like all the awards set in the world, the Pulitzer Prize is not flawless. Previously, some nonsense international reports also won awards, which is obviously not in line with the spirit of Pulitzer. I won't expand on it here.
Pulitzer once told James Krillman, a reporter for Le Monde: "I want to attack any misconduct in public utilities, the police and other departments." I think the newspaper is a moral teacher who teaches the world what is right and what is wrong. Newspapers must do so. If the newspaper rides on the wall and does not take a stand, I will not be blind even if I die. Newspapers should not manipulate the government, nor should they make money, but should guide public opinion. "It's so sonorous and powerful - look at "Pulitzer's biography", no matter which version, you know that Pulitzer is a very "bullish" newspaper person.
The "mouthpiece" is not the brain, and the "Acura" is just propaganda. Independent will, problem-orientation, and critical thinking are the embodiment of Pulitzer's journalistic spirit.
(The author is a columnist for this newspaper and a special commentator for the Japan branch of the Hong Kong News Service)