Bloomberg TV corrects Betty Liu ad that claims Pulitzer nomination

Bill Dedman of MSNBC.com writes that Bloomberg Television has pulled an advertisement for anchor Betty Liu because it says she was a nominated for a Pulitzer when the Pulitzer committee does not list her as a nominee for any year.

Dedman writes, “When asked by msnbc.com about the discrepancy, Bloomberg TV said the ads are wrong and will be corrected.

“It turns out that Liu is another example of a Pulitzer entrant — not a finalist or nominee —  who routinely lists the word ‘Pulitzer’ in her bio anyway. Like conservative author Jonah Goldberg, whose false claim on the cover of his book was described in this space last month, Liu was just one of thousands of entrants whose work was left on the floor at the end of the judging.

“When Liu was a reporter for The Financial Times in Atlanta in 2000, Bloomberg said, the newspaper submitted her work to the Pulitzer committee. To call that submission a Pulitzer ‘nomination’ is like saying that Adam Sandler is an Oscar nominee if Columbia Pictures enters ‘That’s My Boy’ in the Academy Awards. Many readers would realize that the Oscars don’t work that way — the studios don’t pick the nominees. It’s just a way of slipping ‘Academy Awards’ into a bio. The Pulitzers also don’t work that way, but fewer people know that. 

“Liu, known for her interviews of Warren Buffett, Jack Welch and other CEOs, did not respond to requests for an interview about her biography. She hosts the show ‘In the Loop with Betty Liu’ on Bloomberg TV, which is owned by Bloomberg L.P., whose majority owner is the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.”

Read more here. Dedman, by the way, is a Pulitzer Prize winning business journalist who uncovered redlining at Atlanta banks in the late 1980s.