
2020 Pulitzer Prize Winners - hhs
https://www.pulitzer.org/news/announcement-2020-pulitzer-prize-winners
======
gen220
I haven’t read most of the pieces awarded here, and I’m sure they’re all
excellent. That being said, I want to call your attention to the winner for
"Feature Writing", and recommend you to read it. Taub’s produced a
heartbreaking, empathetic, and incredible piece, that tilted my perspective on
the US government's handling of 9/11, and how the government and big
(dis-)organizations work in general.

Given his source material, it would have been easy (and justified) to
construct the narrative into a tirade against the CIA. Instead, Taub takes a
rather empathetic and detached frame of reference, and the result is a
monument to the human toll of ruthlessly-executed ignorance. None of the
people (victims or perpetrators) seem to fully understand their absurd roles:
their actions driven by jumpy supervisors and acquaintances, who in turn are
driven by a mix of fear, ideology and separation from "ground".

And once the veil of ignorance is lifted, there are reputations and legacies
to protect, bureaucratic boxes that "cannot" be unchecked. There's no undoing
what's set in motion, because "undo" implies reflection and the admission of
wrongdoing, which is something that we _really_ struggle with as a society.

It's a tragedy you see play out everywhere, and this is a particularly
poignant and tragic case, beautifully presented. If it isn't a case study
already, it ought to be one.

([https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/22/guantanamos-
da...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/22/guantanamos-darkest-
secret))

~~~
thundergolfer
Thanks for your comment. I read the piece, and it was worth the time.

After so many words about their shared story, seeing that photo of Wood and
Salahi together was quite arresting.

------
danso
At least a couple of this year's winners have been previously discussed on HN:

via Seattle Times:

\- How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19421612](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19421612)

\- Boeing altered key switches in 737 MAX cockpit limiting ability to shut off
MCAS:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19887177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19887177)

And via ProPublica:

\- Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by Its Own Navy
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19094762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19094762)

\- Navy’s flawed technology set the USS John McCain up for disaster:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21844963](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21844963)

Both were awarded the prize in National Reporting (it's not typical for 2
different projects to get the same award the same year):
[https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-
category/209](https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/209)

------
trimbo
> Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle
> Times

Worth their weight in gold on the 737 Max story. Congratulations!

------
blhack
How could you design a fitness function for news to ensure that it was
accurate?

Papers like The Financial Times have an obvious one: people are using these to
inform themselves about business and investment. If FT was giving inaccurate
data, it would have an obvious cost to the people who read it.

But for papers like the NYT, what is the incentive to accurately report the
news? It seems like by inaccurately reporting things, they'll make more money.
This is a problem. How would you fix it?

~~~
chrisaycock
I get the impression that your question is merely to raise FUD about _The New
York Times_ rather than to legitimately ask about quality control. I've
downvoted you (as have others), but I'll go ahead and answer you in good faith
all the same.

The way a publication can ensure its quality is to charge for it. That is,
rather than relying mostly on advertising (which is per article), rely on
subscriptions. The kind of audience that pays for news will appreciate higher-
quality journalism. That audience also must stick around for the long haul.

That's why the best-regarded outlets tend to be newswires (AP, Reuters),
business news (WSJ, Bloomberg), donation driven (NPR, PBS), and long-form
stories (NYT, WP).

Indeed, a quick check of NYT's latest 10K shows that they got over $1B from
subscriptions (and growing) with an additional $500M from advertising (and
shrinking).

[https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/71691/000007...](https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/71691/000007169120000003/a201910-kq4project.htm#sB18F8EC551135FA3AE59A7C5B6E414F6)

~~~
blhack
Ahh, no? I just used the New York Times and an example because it is by far
the most popular newspaper in the country. It’s relevant to this post because
they obviously won a bunch of awards, as the usually do.

News and quality of news has been a major part of my life since my first ever
semi successful project, which was a news aggregator I started over a decade
ago. One of the mechanisms we tried then (before reddit existed as far as I
know) was a sortof economy where each poster got a certain amount of tokens to
“spend” on submissions and comments, and you could earn more tokens when
people “paid” you for your quality contributions.

Obviously it didn’t work.

Since then I’ve tried computational linguistics approaches to this problem,
which solves _a_ problem, but not the fitness checking one I’m talking about
here.

And finally: my wife is a former political journalist, so obviously news and
quality of news is a major topic in my life which I talk about, read about,
and write about pretty regularly.

------
elteto
Glad to see smaller publications putting out good journalism and being
recognized.

High quality reporting is, still, one of the most effective ways to speak
truth to power. Unfortunately the internet has decimated smaller journals and
local papers, so local issues might never get reported on. I wish that trend
would reverse, but I have no idea how one would do that.

~~~
save_ferris
Pay for your news, get a subscription to a local paper, participate in your
local political process if you can. We're all so focused on work and what's
going on in Washington that we don't allow ourselves to reserve any time or
energy to understand local politics, because they're "boring".

~~~
jeffbee
My local paper and in fact every paper in California mixes a smattering of
worthwhile reporting into non-stop stupidity. Every morning the editors of the
LA Times wake up and think of a new way to trash every one of my core beliefs,
so it doesn't matter to me that the LA Times published one (1) worthwhile
piece of art criticism in 2019. That's certainly not enough to make me
overlook the fact that the LA Times has been running a large-scale real estate
scam for over 100 years, considering that housing is the most important issue
to me.

I subscribe to CalMatters and Berkeleyside and Boom California. Anyone who
considers themselves a good local journalist needs to write for those outlets
if they want my dollar. I'm not here to enrich the shareholders of legacy
newspapers.

ETA: There actually is one good newspaper in California: the Anderson Valley
Advertiser. Wouldn't want to miss mentioning America's last newspaper.

~~~
save_ferris
Do you have any evidence to back your LA Times real estate scam claim? Seems
hard to believe that an organization that large would be able to pull off a
conspiracy like that for 100 years without someone coming forward about it.

~~~
jeffbee
Can't tell if you are serious or not. The LAT was published by Harry Chandler,
owner and developer of the San Fernando Valley and other areas. Chandler used
the Times to boost migration to Los Angeles, to take over the Owens River, and
to involve himself in many other affairs. For the entire 20th century the
Times was Chandler's mouthpiece to remake southern California to serve the
interest of his greed. This is all well-documented in dozens of books, many of
which are wonderfully good reading. I recommend anything my Mark Arax or Marc
Reisner, or this article from Boom:
[https://boomcalifornia.com/2013/09/23/there-it-is-take-
it/](https://boomcalifornia.com/2013/09/23/there-it-is-take-it/)

------
2bitencryption
I honestly don't know much about what it takes to win a Pulitzer.

But while scrolling down that page, I was crossing my fingers for APM's
podcast In the Dark to win something.

The second season following the Curtis Flowers case is fascinating,
infuriating, beautiful, harrowing, and culminates in a US Supreme Court
case...

I don't know where that podcast sits on the spectrum of "pulp crime interest"
to "genuine reporting" but IMO it's far, far on the side of "genuine
reporting".

~~~
danso
If I'm reading the Wikipedia page correctly [0], APM's latest season finished
in 2018, although it did publish updates in early 2019. IIRC to be eligible
for this year's Pulitzer (specifically the one in audio reporting, which
didn't exist in 2019), the season would have had to been published in 2019.

That said, This American Life did win a Pulitzer in 2011, but it had
ProPublica as a publishing partner, and I believe it was the first time a
journalism Pulitzer went to a project that did not publish in print [1].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Dark_(podcast)#Season_2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Dark_\(podcast\)#Season_2_2)

[1]
[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/about/announcements/pulitze...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/about/announcements/pulitzer-
for-propublicas-wall-street-coverage)

------
seibelj
The 1619 project is at its core flawed
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project#Critical_resp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project#Critical_response)

The American Revolution was simply not about protecting slavery. You can't say
the birth of America was a racist endeavor - it's factually incorrect. This is
historical revisionism.

~~~
untog
A more correct way of summarising the link you provided is that _some
historians contend_ the 1619 Project is at its core flawed, and it has been
criticised by many prominent conservatives.

It’s a subject of much debate both in and out of academic circles.

~~~
InTheArena
[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/1619-proje...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/1619-project-
new-york-times-wilentz/605152/)

While this list contains everything that is positive and great about
journalism, it also embraces what makes journalism reviled. The Pulitzer award
going to the 1619 project despite it's mistruths further erodes people's
willingness to trust the media to do their basic job - to tell the truth.

The NYT article embraces the conceit from the media that they are they experts
- they need not listen to historians, but instead journalists can be the sole
arbiter of truth.

The articles "overarching contention that slavery and racism are the
foundations of American history" is simply a story that the journalist wants
to tell. The journalist ignored the truth in order to tell that story risks
kicking out the legs to a true evaluation of America's (and more generally the
west's) troubled history with race.

To some, the 1619 project becomes incontrovertible truth, backed by the
Pulitzer and the NYT, and anyone who disagrees with it are racist. To others
the easily disproved assertions discredit not only this article, but all well-
founded criticisms of race in America.

This is how we get two Americas. Every man is entitled to their opinion, but
not their own set of facts. If we ignore facts in order to feed our biases, we
will never be able to talk about the truly hard issues that we have to master.

------
gxqoz
I felt that Greg Grandin's Myth of the Frontier was actually the second-best
counter-narrative to the standard accounts of American relations with its
neighbors published in 2019. The most interesting was How to Hide an Empire by
Daniel Immerwahr: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/books/review-how-to-
hide-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/books/review-how-to-hide-empire-
daniel-immerwahr.html)

One of the more interesting sections for the Hacker News crowd is how
technological advancements in World War II like artificial rubber and
international standards allowed the US to cede the huge amount of land it
directly controlled after the war (which is not to say that US influence
completely disappeared in these places).

------
ArjA
The press gets a bad name a lot of the time, especially by those who are in
positions of power and who are subject to the press, but the reality is that a
lot of the press and many journalists do incredible work that shed light on
various stories that might go unnoticed if it was not for journalism and the
press. Obviously there are bad actors that degrade what the press does or
stands and those actors usually are louder and get put in the spotlight but
there are so many incredible journalists that really do uphold the intended
role of the press; to inform, criticize, and stimulate debate. I’m glad that
parts of the press, those who really do hold up journalistic integrity and
care about their work/role, are recognized especially in the current state of
the world where the press, even good actors, are often blamed or criticized
for doing their job and are somehow framed as the “bad guy.”

~~~
pm90
Seriously, so much this. You only realize how valuable good journalism is when
you don’t have it, as is unfortunately very common in most parts of the world.

Journalists play an extremely important role in keeping a check on power and
as such are critical to the health of a democracy. The current US presidents
violent rhetoric against the press should make people a lot angrier than it
has so far; without a good, unbiased press there is simply no way to have an
honest conversation about the most important problems that a country faces and
the different plans by which to address them (as is becoming very clear by the
botched response to the Coronavirus pandemic).

~~~
umvi
> The current US presidents violent rhetoric against the press should make
> people a lot angrier than it has so far

It would make me a lot angrier if the most popular news outlets were indeed
"good, unbiased press" and not spin doctors and propaganda distributors for
[insert political machine].

~~~
jonhohle
Very much this. What most people consider "the press", the main stream media,
has converted almost completely to infotainment, opinion, and propaganda for
vested interests.

John Gruber (of Daring Fireball, Mardkown fame, etc.) coined the term "claim
chowder" and started keeping a list of dubious tech reporting. I've been
keeping a mental list myself and its almost painful how often a highly
circulated story obviously will have a shelf life of weeks or days before
being completely invalidated. As long as it makes it through the spin cycle,
though, I suppose it doesn't matter to show runners, editors, and others
pushing the narrative.

When news outlets run significantly fabricated stories (sometimes for months
or years) and then run a genuine story how can they be believed? When news
outlets never issue retractions, corrections, or apologies for misleading the
public, how can they be trusted. When they actively attempt to remove or
change content from their public archives in order to put themselves on the
right side of history or direct the way history is being made, how can they be
treated as protectors of freedom against tyranny. When they destroy the lives
of who accidentally entered their crosshairs to sell ad space, how can they be
considered good.

~~~
drongoking
That's an insanely broad brush. The mainstream press includes the NY Times,
The Washington Post, The Economist, The Atlantic, and NPR. Please explain how
they fabricate narratives, how they destroy the lives of those who
accidentally enter their crosshairs, and how they retroactively alter their
archives to change history.

I'd expect your summary dismissal of the mainstream media from a Trump
supporter. I'm surprised to see it on HN. So please elaborate.

~~~
lowdose
When was the last time you read a positive story on Putin in the NYtimes?

All those outlets are compromised expect maybe NPR. Eric Weinstein calls it
the gated institutional narrative, it is on you you still consider the
mainstream anything more than shadow of what they represented in the past.

~~~
pm90
Theres nothing positive about Putin because he is a murderous dictator.
There’s nothing positive about Kim Jong Un or Orban or MBS either. The
NYTimes’ journalistic integrity is not measured by positive coverage of
dictators in fact if anything it’s the opposite.

------
panabee
fascinating fact: the pulitzer prize, one of the most prestigious awards in
journalism, is named after a newspaper publisher infamous for yellow
journalism. by the end of his career, however, joseph pulitzer had reformed
himself and started producing outstanding journalism.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer)

~~~
forgingahead
Sort of like:

"The Enron Prize for good corporate accounting"

"The Benedict Arnold medial of Patriotism"

"The Lucrezia Borgia Best Cocktail award"

etc

~~~
wp381640
or in 80 years time the prestigious Murdoch Award for excellence in journalism

------
typon
Each story was impactful, either at a local, national or global level.
Congratulations to the winners. We need more courageous and thoughtful
journalism.

------
_hardwaregeek
Ben Taub has been putting out some fantastic work, especially for someone so
young. His article on Iraq's post ISIS policies was incredibly sad but very
informative.

~~~
sbuccini
Incredibly prolific, especially given his how well-received his track record
has been. Takes some serious guts to take a year off from Princeton to _self-
fund a trip to Syria during the middle of a war_ to learn how to be a war
correspondent.

------
Arainach
What does "Moved into contention by the Board" mean in the context of these
awards?

~~~
apendleton
I believe these are cases where the publication itself didn't nominate the
piece or author for consideration as typically happens, but the board decided
to consider it anyway.

------
jpdus
The subject of one winning story (Governor Bevin) apparently knew that his
pardons were Pulitzer-worthy before:

[https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1257389461429784583?s=19](https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1257389461429784583?s=19)

~~~
thebokehwokeh2
I don't understand what Bevin means by this. Is he being sarcastic?

~~~
phlyingpenguin
He was hoping to sway the story away from what he already knew was being
written. He made the phone call to Sonka unscheduled and had never called
before. In fact, it was a surprise because most of Sonka's work was not
complimentary. Having the governor who was against news media (Trumpian) give
a friendly call was very strange.

------
op03
That Epstein cartoon is brilliant given that no one still seems to know what
happened - [https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/barry-blitt-contributor-
new...](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/barry-blitt-contributor-new-yorker)

------
jzer0cool
Is it possible to win Pulitzer Prize with just 1 submission - (e.g. amateur
submission in 1 of the categories)? Or does one require a track record of some
sort for the year?

~~~
danso
Putting aside the likely bias towards established organizations (big and
small), most winners in the journalism article categories submit a series of
articles, because practically speaking, several small articles often lead up
to the big investigation (e.g. Watergate) [0]; or, one big investigation leads
to a series of followups, including coverage about the impact and consequences
from the story, e.g. Snowden files [1].

That said, there are one-shot amateur Pulitzer winners, most notably in the
photography categories. The Pulitzer winning photo of the Kent State massacre
was taken by a photojournalism student [2]. And one of the most famous early
Pulitzer photos was taken by a non-journalism amateur: 24-year-old Arnold
Hardy in 1947 [3].

I think the contemporary category where you will find the most examples of
single-article winners will be Feature Writing, but I'm not aware of any
amateurs who have won it: [https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-
category/211](https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/211)

[0] [https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-
post](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-post)

[1] [https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-
post-1](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/washington-post-1)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Filo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Filo)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Hardy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Hardy)

~~~
jzer0cool
I appreciate the time spent you have spent putting together a nice response --
thank you!

------
illiilliiililil
The 1619 Project was such an awful bit of journalism. Totally not surprised it
won a Pulitzer.

~~~
mulmen
I don't understand the usage of awful here. Are you using it to suggest the
journalism is good and deserving of recognition (confusing) or that the
Pulitzer is an award for bad journalism?

~~~
djannzjkzxn
I believe that illiilliiililil is expressing a somewhat complex set of
opinions:

1) They genuinely don’t like the 1619 project.

2) They understand that the Pulitzer is supposed to be an award for good
journalism.

3) They believe that journalism about some subjects is more likely to win a
Pulitzer without being the best by illiilliiililil‘s standards. You could
compare it to the concept of an “Oscar bait” movie:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_bait](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_bait)

I’m not sure I agree with this criticism - I think exploring tough subjects
can lead to great work that is especially deserving of praise.

~~~
thedudeabides5
_On the American Revolution, pivotal to any account of our history, the
project asserts that the founders declared the colonies’ independence of
Britain “in order to ensure slavery would continue.” This is not true_

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-
th...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/we-respond-to-the-
historians-who-critiqued-the-1619-project.html)

------
abc_lisper
Does anyone know why Barry Blitt's recognition is now under contention?

[https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/barry-blitt-contributor-
new...](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/barry-blitt-contributor-new-yorker)

~~~
e15ctr0n
_Contention_ here means as a contender for the prize. See the second meaning
here:
[https://www.dictionary.com/browse/contention](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/contention)

 _Moved by the board_ means that the board nominated it; not submitted by the
author / publisher.

~~~
abc_lisper
Got it.. thanks!

------
Amorymeltzer
Two specific points of note:

\- This is the first year the audio reporting category is being awarded; This
American Life seems like a perfect inaugural winner.

\- Colson Whitehead (Fiction) also won in the same category in 2017.

------
jpxw
The ligatures, for example in “metaﬁctional”, are broken on this site for me
(they appear in the wrong font)

------
0xy
Should anyone be proud of a Pulitzer considering they gave one out to the New
York Times for covering up genocide in the USSR? [1]

It would seem to me that the Pulitzer Prize is ethically bankrupt considering
who you share this 'prestige' with.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty)

~~~
jumelles
This happened ninety years ago.

------
dsimms
One day a chicken will finally win, which will be a pullet surprise...

But seriously, congratulations to the winners!

------
dntbnmpls
The Pulitzer Prize was created by the founder of yellow journalism ( AKA 1800s
fake news ) - Joseph Pulitzer. Is this a prize that journalists or journalism
should be supporting? It would be a like a physics award created by a flat
earther.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize)

But I guess congratulations are in order.

