Top Performers

The Pulitzer Prize committee's awards for journalism in recent years have honored mediocrity almost as often as merit. The committee's selections for 1957, announced last week, rewarded the top performers ($1,000 each) in a stellar year.

The prize for "disinterested and meritorious public service" went to the Chicago Daily News for its expose of Illinois State Auditor Orville Hodge's massive ($2,500,000) embezzlement (TIME, July 23). Prizewinners for local reporting 1) "in which edition time is not a factor" were Portland Oregonian Reporters Wallace Turner, 36, and William Lambert, 37, for breaking the conspiracy by hoodlums. Teamsters and local officials to take over Portland rackets (TIME. June 4 et seq.); and 2) "under pressure of edition time," the Salt Lake City Tribune (circ. 97,938) for its fast-moving coverage of the Grand Canyon airline disaster.

For national reporting the prize (his second) went to James ("Scotty") Reston, 47, the New York Times's Washington bureau chief, for a five-part series on the disposition of executive power in the event of the President's incapacity. The prize for international reporting went to United Press Correspondent Russell Jones, 39, for his coverage of the Hungarian up-.risings after every other U.S. newsman had left (TIME, Dec. 3). It was the first time in the 40-year history of the awards that a major wire service other than the Associated Press had won a prize.

Other press prizewinners:

P: For editorial writing, Publisher Buford Boone, 48, whose Tuscaloosa News (circ. 16,478) condemned mob violence at the height of the Autherine Lucy riots at the University of Alabama (TIME, Feb. 13. 1956 et seq.).

P: For photography, the Boston Traveler's Harry A. Trask, 29, who shot a last-glimpse closeup of the Andrea Doria as she plunged to the bottom.

P: For cartooning, the Nashville Tennessean's Tom Little, 58, with a cartoon urging parents to give children polio shots.

Winners in other fields: drama, the late great Playwright Eugene O'Neill, with Long Day's Journey Into Night; music. Norman Dello Joio for Meditations on Ecclesiastcs; history. George F. Kennan for Russia Leaves the War; biography. Massachusetts' Senator John F. Kennedy for Profiles in Courage; poetry. Richard Wilbur for Things of This World. There was no fiction award.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.