Thorns in the Laurels

Though they are the most sought-after badges in daily print journalism, the Pulitzer Prizes, like awards in other fields, are frequently challenged. It is sometimes murmured that they are bestowed too often with an eye to geographic balance, or as a reward for longtime competence rather than contemporary brilliance. The top awards for 1971, announced last week, are again controversial, but for different reasons.

More than ever, it was the year of the investigator, the unmasker of official secrets and official wrongdoing. The New York Times won its 38th prize, this time in the "public service" category, for publishing the Pentagon papers. Neil Sheehan, the reporter to whom Daniel Ellsberg gave the documents and who wrote the principal analytical articles, received no individual recognition. Apparently the jurors felt that the Times's courage in printing the material in the face of Government legal pressure was the crucial element. Yet Columnist Jack Anderson (TIME cover, April 3) won the national reporting prize for obtaining other secret material--memoranda concerning secret Administration discussions about the U.S. attitude toward the India-Pakistan War, which favored Pakistan.

Increased Respect. The local reporting awards also went for sensational disclosures. Two reporters for the Rochester, N.Y., Times-Union were honored for their coverage of the Attica prison revolt; they were the first to report that police bullets rather than prisoners' knives had killed the guards being held hostage. A four-member Boston Globe team won for an expose of deep civic corruption in Somerville, Mass.

The emphasis on tough reporting was certainly a sign of the profession's increased respect for crusading. Until recent months, for instance, Jack Anderson was no darling of the more conventional journalists, some of whom considered him too erratic and frivolous. The editors and publishers who make up the Pulitzer juries and Columbia University's Pulitzer Advisory Board have obviously overcome that sentiment. Not so the university trustees, who must ratify the selections.

A majority of the lawyers, bankers and businessmen who dominate the board of trustees bristled at the thought of applauding the theft of Government documents. It was only after a bitter debate that the trustees voted reluctantly to accept the nominations. In an unprecedented statement they admitted: "Had the selections been those of the trustees alone, certain of the recipients would not have been chosen."

By placing thorns among the laurels, the trustees emphasized the continuing argument over the publication of secret material. If the press is to be the sole arbiter of what the Government can keep confidential, the conduct of public business would be difficult indeed. Yet officials continue to bury their mistakes, and there is little doubt that the nation is better off knowing the contents of the Pentagon papers and the Anderson papers, despite the violations of classification procedure.

Even before the latest Pulitzers were announced, criticism of another sort came from John McCormally, editor of the Burlington, Iowa, Hawk-Eye and himself a 1965 prizewinner and former juror. In the current issue of the journalism review [More], McCormally argues for a more venturesome attitude on the prize givers' part. As a Pulitzer juror last year, he complains he was expected to scrutinize 134 entries within nine hours. McCormally claims that such a system "allows for some pretty good journalism to get lost." More importantly he contends that the selection group is too narrowly based to encompass all that is new and vital in journalism. For the sake of diversity he would add such nonjournalists as Jesse Jackson, Saul Alinsky, Daniel Berrigan and Spiro Agnew.

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