Pulitzer Season Opens: New Book Probes Public Service Winners

By: Joe Strupp Roy Harris Jr. says up front that his interest in the Pulitzer Prize's coveted Public Service Award is based at least in part on family ties. After all, his father, Roy Harris Sr., had a hand in winning four of the awards in the 1940s and 1950s as a reporter and editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Still, there is much more to chew on than his family tree in Harris' book Pulitzer Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism (University of Missouri Press), out this month. Harris, a senior editor at CFO magazine, looks at the history of the most honored of the 14 Pulitzers.

First given in 1918, the Public Service honor is the only Pulitzer that awards no prize money, is never given to an individual, and has no restrictions on subject matter, form of entry, or scope. "My feeling was, originally, it had not gotten as much attention as the easier-to-follow awards," Harris tells E&P. "But when I started doing reporting, I found out it was a much more different story to tell because of the complexities of the newsroom models. Each one is very different." He notes that few people know the individual winning stories beyond the awards to The Washington Post in 1973 for its Watergate coverage and The New York Times in 1972 for the Pentagon Papers.

"For some reason, people were not telling the story behind history. It is clearly the prize that Joseph Pulitzer considered most important," Harris says of the newspaper mogul who created the awards. He also points to the impact the Public Service stories must have in order to be considered: They must show the reporting made a difference. "Public service is specifically geared to change," he adds. "The juries and the board look at some change that is wrought in America."

Among the earliest Public Service winners noted in the book is the Boston Post's 1921 award for exposing the first Ponzi schemes (a type of illegal "pyramid" investment scams). "Charles Ponzi was an incredibly popular person when the Boston Post burst his bubble," Harris says. "The Post worked against the crowd, they found out he had a record of corruption. It was a classic case of exposure."

Harris also notes early exposure of the Ku Klux Klan the 1920s, garnering two Public Service awards during that decade for the New York World and the Columbus (Ga.) Enquirer-Sun. Smaller papers get notice, as with the 1977 award to the Lufkin (Texas) News for an expos? of efforts to cover up the training-related death of a U.S. Marine ? a story that began as a simple obituary. There's also the Point Reyes (Calif.) Light's win two years later for its investigation of Synanon, a cultish church. "It was a mom-and-pop newspaper that took on a militant cult just down the road," Harris notes.

Other examples include the former Arkansas Gazette in Little Rock's win in 1958 for school integration coverage that cost it dearly in readers; Newsday's 1974 award for its "Heroin Trail" investigation of narcotics trafficking; and the Canton (Ohio) Daily News, whose exposure of local political corruption in 1927 won it the Gold Medal but led first to the editor's murder and then the paper's closure. When the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram investigated design flaws that had caused a string of Bell Helicopter crashes, it won the 1985 Public Service prize but came under a boycott by Bell, the area's largest employer.

Not every winning entry receives praise in Harris' book. One example is the 1919 award bestowed upon the Milwaukee Journal for its support of the "Campaign for Americanism," which promoted some prejudicial ideas ? including opposition to the teaching of German in schools.

Harris focuses much of the book on the most recent Public Service prizes, such as the 2006 award given to The Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., and The Times-Picayune in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina coverage; The New York Times' 2002 award for its Sept. 11 reporting; and The Boston Globe's 2003 prize for its revelations on the Catholic Church sex scandal. He points out that The Wall Street Journal, the winner of 34 Pulitzers, did not win a Public Service prize until last April when its reporting on backdated stock options was recognized.

Among the tidbits found was that Globe Editor Martin Baron launched the in-depth church probe his first day as editor, asking during a news meeting why the paper had not sought to unseal court records related to a local priest accused of sexually abusing children. "As a reporter, it was the most fun to write about," Harris says of the Globe's work. "After seeing it develop in my own backyard, I could recreate in my own mind how a newspaper works at the very best."

Harris stresses the Gold Medal history reminds journalists and non-journalists that public service must remain the focus of newspapers during the current trying times and change, when the press must continue its "irreplaceable role in American Democracy," he writes in the book. "Whatever models emerge, public service should be at their center."