WSJ’s Baker complains about Pulitzer judges

Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker complained about the Pulitzer Prize judges in an email to his staff last month, reports Maxwell Tani of The Daily Beast.

Tani writes, “Baker expressed dismay that the paper’s peers won awards while the Journal was passed over. He dismissed the judgment of the Pulitzer judges, adding that the Journal ‘doesn’t always get all the recognition it deserves in some quarters.’

“‘We don’t do what we do for the sake of winning awards but it is always nice to win them, and always a little painful when our outstanding work gets completely ignored for some reason by the small, self-selected group of journalists, academics and literary mavens who sit in judgment of it,’ Baker lamented.

“The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, The New Yorker, and the USA Today network were among the 2018 Pulitzer Prize winners announced last week.

“In Friday’s email, Baker praised recent reporting about lobbyist Tony Podesta and North Korean hackers, adding that the Journal’s reporting had ‘a deep impact on the lives of millions of people around the world, exposing malfeasance, holding the powerful accountable, shedding light in dark places.’

“‘You don’t always get a medal for that but you do get something else—the enduring gratitude of an ever-growing and increasingly empowered audience,’ he wrote.”

Read more here.