Mike's Pulitzers

The pulitzer awards are in and I'm amazed the Times-Picayune of New Orleans won the public service prize. It shared the honor with the Sun Herald of Biloxi Mississippi. They got the award for reporting on Katrina while being hit by Katrina. That,I can sympathize with but the Times-Picayune went over the top and printed lies about 40 bodies piled up in the freezer. I don't see how lying to the public can earn an award for public service. There has to be other papers that didn't let false stories get by and who were more deserving. A single phony story like the 40 bodies should have disqualified the paper automatically.

Editor & Publisher has a list of winners here. I was going to present a list of Pulitzer prize winners according to Mike's Eyes Saturday the 15th but I just plain forgot. So without further ado, here is my very short list:

First, the award for the reporter most dedicated to reporting the truth, the winner is, Becky Wagoner of the Inter-Mountain newspaper. As I wrote in my post of January 15th 2006 Truth vs. News:


"Evidently, the media were given a briefing room in which they would be given info by the authorities as it was confirmed. But when the rumor spread that the miners' families were celebrating at the church because they heard that the miners were all alive, the media left the briefing room and went to the church for the sensational story. Except for one reporter. Becky Wagoner, a reporter for the Inter-Mountain newspaper, stayed in the briefing room. For three hours the MSM reported a falsehood. She didn't. Their readers were misled. Her's weren't. Their papers and TV news stations looked, to the public, like incompetents. Her paper didn't."

Congratulations Ms. Wagoner.

For the catagory of proficiency with statistics, the winner is, Lindsey Tanner of the Associated Press. In my post of Jan 25th, "I'm Impressed" I quoted Mr. Tanner's article reporting on a study alleging that omega-3 doesn't have an affect on cancer:


"However, the review is unlikely to be the last word on the issue. Diet is known to play a role in cancer and the researchers evaluated observational studies, which provide mostly circumstantial evidence."

Most reporters would not know the difference between an observational study and a clinical trial, but Mr. Tanner seems to know and used dissenting opinions in his piece.

Congratulations Mr. Tanner.

For the catagory of honestly identifying the nature of Iran, the winner is, Salena Zito of the Pittsburg Tribune-Review in an op-ed she wrote here. A key quote:

"In this clash, we need to define the enemy, take it on and stop worrying about offending a religious sect. It is what it is: Islamic fascists are determined to end Western culture."

Congratulations Ms. Zito.

That's it for the positive awards but I do have one award left. It's called the Full-ofitzer award for the most slanted, biased report, and the winner is, Terence Hunt of the Associated Press. In the first post on this blog in December titled "The Slants of the MSM" I wrote:


"In the sub-conscious or even the semi-conscious mind of a casual reader certain images will be associated: Bush = "escalating," "hurling," "charging," "attacking" which equals aggressive, violent, uncivil and dangerous. Democrats= "debate,""criticize," "express worries," "accuse" which equals peaceful, discourse, concern and civility."

By using hostile and negative adjectives and verbs to describe Bush, and gentle and positive ones to describe Democrats, Mr. Hunt tries to get his readers in the proper anti-Bush frame of mind.

Admittedly, this is a really short list. Perhaps next year I can add more names that I know should get some recognition.