April 7: Pulitzer thoughts

The Pulitzer Prize winners were announced today:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003786622

A couple of thoughts:

*Gene Weingarten's award - in fact, the whole concept of the article - still makes me squeamish: Setting up violinist Joshua Bell to see who notices. Sorry, but it still seems out of the reality TV show/TV news sweeps stunts makeup to me. If Bell had set it up himself and the Washington Post had covered it, that would be one thing, but this is not journalism to me. (Full disclosure: I worked for WPLG-Channel 10 in Miami, which is owned by The Washington Post Company, from 1990-2003. My job was eliminated.)

*The Post also won for its coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. I do believe that some recognition should have been given to the VT students who covered those shootings - in many cases, while the campus was still under fire. Even though they are college students, they left many pros in the dust.