From the Article :The board that awards the Pulitzer Prizes said Wednesday that newspapers can now enter material published online in each category of the prestigious competition, an acknowledgment of the growing influence of Internet journalism.

Since 1999, newspapers have been able to include online material as part of submissions in the public-service category, regarded as the most prestigious of the 14 Pulitzer categories. Now, newspapers will be able to submit online content in all categories, though only two — breaking news and breaking news photography — will allow material solely published on the Web. In the other categories, Web content must be paired with something published in print.

(Read the rest here)

Does this sound snooty/pathetic to anyone else? Personally I really don’t care about the Pulitzer prize, because it is not something that I’m going to get or even be considered for. In my mind it has always been a mark on the horizon to reach for, or a level of comparison to judge by; but I don’t believe such coarse distinctions regarding what is true news and what is not based on the whether the story is on a webpage or at the bottom of a bird cage in the morning, is worthy of its nature. To me this smacks of tails wagging dogs. It just cries out that the members of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism are more concerned with the lobby attentions of ol’boy newsman, than the merits of an article or news story.

If we spent more time in the areas of news integrity and less time trying to keep good ol boy industry from sinking into mires of their own creation, we would have better news, and less need of Pulitzer prizes. Of course I also believe that it is a bit hypocritical to want to take video games off the shelves because of violence, while leaving the shotguns in WalMart, so my thoughts may be way off base here.

Posted by Glenn Hefley in Writing Contests