CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – There is no higher award in journalism than the Pulitzer Prize. And yet some of the reporters who’ve won this honor have published half-truths and outright lies.
Columnist Michael Goodwin published an op-ed last year wondering when the New York Post will get its Pulitzer. The answer, of course, is never. The Post is a tabloid – not a respectable publication. But they broke the Hunter Biden laptop story… the story of the 2020 campaign. But The New York Times, winner of 132 Pulitzers, said the laptop was likely Russian disinformation. A year later, the Times conceded that the laptop is authentic, buried paragraphs-deep in one of their stories. No correction or apology needed.
Fact 1 – Joseph Pulitzer would have loved the modern New York Post. His own paper, the New York World, was a tabloid that sensationalized the stories of the day. He emphasized crime, and scandal, and gossip. He founded journalism schools and endowed the Pulitzer Prize to rehab his reputation as a yellow journalist.
Fact 2 – The New York Times won the Pulitzer for its coverage of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia; a discredited story about a dossier peddled by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Emphasizing that story, over Hunter Biden’s real, legitimate laptop, is a colossal mistake in editorial judgement.
Fact 3 – Some stories that won Pulitzers were made up. The most notorious is the 1981 story written by Janet Cook of the Washington Post. She wrote about “Jimmy”, a crack-addicted boy who wandered the streets. She later admitted that “Jimmy” wasn’t a real person. She hid that from her readers and editors.
We tend to think of journalism as a paragon of virtue and the gate-keepers of truth.
Not always.
There is no substitute for your own critical thinking.
I’m Chris Conly.
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