The Pulitzer Prizes organization has been accused of being an exclusive club in which members give awards to each other, and the institution did nothing to dispel that notion last week by honoring the wife of a prominent board member.
Author Eliza Griswold won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America. Her husband is Steve Coll, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, which hosts the prizes, and a Pulitzer board member since 2012.
Pulitzer Prizes administrator Dana Canedy rejected the suggestion that connections matter when it comes to nabbing the 102-year-old award, considered the journalism establishment's highest honor.
“That is utter nonsense,” Ms. Canedy said in an email. “For every Pulitzer winner with a connection to the board there are literally thousands without a board affiliation and yet somehow we never get inquiries about those.”
She also said that Mr. Coll, a two-time Pulitzer winner, was not involved this year in voting for the books. Board members vote for the winners among finalists selected by panels of jurors.
Read Full Article »