John Koblin of the New York Observer notes that the Wall Street Journal, which used to win Pulitzer Prizes with regularity, has not won one since Rupert Murdoch purchased Dow Jones & Co.
Koblin writes, “Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, which was once a Pulitzer-hoarder under Paul Steiger, once again goes home empty-handed. The paper has not won an award since April 2007, and this brings The Journal‘s Pulitzer count in the Murdoch era to a grand total of zero. On the one hand, Mr. Murdoch and Journal editor Robert Thomson would tell you that they don’t care about awards. And yet that didn’t stop Mr. Thomson from getting into a public shoving match with Times editor Bill Keller over a George Polk Award submission. Mr. Thomson said that Mr. Keller tried to tamper with the awards process in 2008.
“To deflect the attention away, minutes before the Pulitzer news was released, The Journal sent out a press release about their accomplishments with the Payne Awards.
“And for the record, Paul Steiger now has now delivered more Pulitzers to ProPublica than The Journal has won since he left the paper.”
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