Miami Herald’s Leonard Pitts Wins for Commentary
Pitts celebrates in newsroom (photo)
“Leonard Pitts, a mainstay in the Herald’s news and features columnist for 13 years, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary Monday,” as the Miami Herald reported today.
“Pitts’ prize came after years of writing on issues ranging from popular music, race and family life in the modern era.
”’I’m going to Disney World,’ quipped Pitts, after thunderous newsroom applause erupted when his prize was confirmed.
“Pitts, a native of Southern California, joined the Herald in 1992 as a music critic. He had been writing on pop music for 15 years and was once the editor of a black tabloid in the Los Angeles area called Soul, now defunct,” the Herald story said.
Syndicated columnist Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was a finalist in the commentary category, along with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times.
In another award, Daniel Golden of the Wall Street Journal won in beat reporting “for his compelling and meticulously documented stories on admission preferences given to the children of alumni and donors at American universities.”
As reported last month, Golden’s series on “white affirmative action” also won a 2003 National Award for Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association and a George Polk Award for excellence in journalism.
In the breaking news photography category, Cheryl Diaz Meyer and David Leeson of the Dallas Morning News won “for their eloquent photographs depicting both the violence and poignancy of the war with Iraq.”
Meyer’s bio says she was born and raised in the Philippines and immigrated with her family to Minnesota in 1981. She has photographed in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Guatemala.
A Miami Herald Web site that showcases Pitts’ columns about Sept. 11, 2001, says:
“In 2001 Pitts was awarded the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ top award for his commentary. In 2000 he was honored by The Society of Professional Journalists with its Fellow of the Society award, one of the highest honors the Ohio-based organization gives professional journalists. In 1993 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.
“As reported in Joan Fleischman’s column of Sept 23, 2001:
“‘On Sept. 11, Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. intended to write about Andrea Yates, the Houston woman who drowned her five kids. But as “hot tears” stung his eyes, he knocked out 700 words on the New York-D.C. devastation — from the pit of his stomach. That column hit a nerve. Readers deluged him with more than 26,000 e-mails, and posted it on the Internet, chain-letter style.'”
In Pitts’ 1999 book “Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood,” he described how his father was an abusive alcoholic and gone more often than not.
A father of five, Pitts interviewed dozens of black men from all walks of life to try to understand how a black man becomes a father, as Essence pointed out at the time. The book, too, won praise.
Other black journalists who have won Pulitzers for commentary include Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune in 1989; William Raspberry of the Washington Post in 1994, E.R. Shipp of the New York Daily News in 1996 and Colbert I. King of the Washington Post last year.
Other finalists today included:
In feature writing, Patricia Wen of the Boston Globe “for her story chronicling more aggressive efforts by states to terminate the rights of parents”; in public service, the Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., edited by Bennie Ivory, “for its vivid portrayal of how delays in the state’s criminal justice system harmed victims and defendants alike, a project that spurred remedial action”; in national reporting, S. Lynne Walker of Copley News Service, writing for The State Journal-Register, Springfield, Ill., “for her candid, in-depth look at how Mexican immigration transformed an all-white Midwestern town”; and in editorial writing, Andres Martinez of the New York Times “for his exhaustively researched series of editorials that exposed the harmful global effects of American agricultural trade policy.”
NABJ Discusses Race and Plagiarism Scandals
The role of race in recent plagiarism scandals was the subject of a panel discussion at the National Association of Black Journalists regional conference over the weekend at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla., the St. Petersburg Times reported.
“NABJ member Mike McQueen, managing editor of the Macon Telegraph, said a number of white reporters at his newspaper were angry” when they learned that Khalil Abdullah, who was fired for plagiarism at his paper last month, previously had been fired by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after allegations that he plagiarized there.
“But McQueen said he thought Abdullah showed promise and deserved a second chance,” reported Tom Zucco.
“Khalil happened to be African-American,” McQueen said. “Race had nothing to do with it (his hiring).”
“I feel sorry for anybody who thought the only way to get ahead was by cheating,” said Cindy George, a reporter for the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer. “But I’m also worried it would hold some of us back. So many of us do things right.”
“I am not Jayson Blair,” George said.
“I worked hard to get where I am,” NABJ president Herbert Lowe said in the piece’s concluding quote. “We all did. And we need to tell that story and remember why we got into this business.
“That first line in your obit,” he said, “is very important.”
Gonzalez Breaks Story on Exposure to Radiation
“Army officials at Fort Dix and Walter Reed Army Medical Center are rushing to test all returning members of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard for depleted uranium contamination,” begins a New York Daily News “special investigation” story today by Juan Gonzalez, who is also president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
“Army brass acted after learning that four of nine soldiers from the company tested by the Daily News showed signs of radiation exposure.
“The soldiers, who returned from Iraq late last year, say they and other members of their company have been suffering from unexplained illnesses since last summer, when they were stationed in the Iraqi town of Samawah.
“Soldiers from the 442nd contacted The News after becoming frustrated with how the Army was handling their illnesses.”
Pictured are two Latino sergeants, Hector Vega and Agustin Matos.
Dori Maynard Voted a “Most Influential” in Bay Area
Dori J. Maynard, president and CEO of the Maynard Institute, has been voted one of the “10 Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area,” winning in the media category. Winners were honored Saturday at the fifth annual awards gala of the CityFlight Media Network, which presented the awards.
“Several prestigious community and professional organizations partnered with CityFlight to comprise the nominating committee,” according to a news release.
“The committee selected the award recipients from among 30 nominees based largely on the biographical data the nominees supplied to CityFlight, with special consideration given to their respective accomplishments and/or contributions during 2003. Additionally, popular votes submitted via www.cityflight.com contributed 30% toward final award decisions.”
