With a Little Help From Her Friends
Not an especially gutsy establishment, Columbia University’s Pulitzer Board likes to deal in results. The Tribune had been studying the death penalty since 1999, and twice had become a Pulitzer Prize finalist for its reporting on the subject without winning. But at the end of his term Governor Ryan–who’d given the Tribune credit for opening his eyes–cleared out death row. This Monday the Tribune’s Cornelia Grumman won a Pulitzer for a series of editorials arguing for capital punishment reform.
The Tribune began its coverage with a January 1999 series by Maurice Possley and Ken Armstrong, “Trial & Error, How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win.” That November, Armstrong and Steve Mills wrote “The Failure of the Death Penalty in Illinois.” Ryan’s response to the second series was to order a moratorium on executions.
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Bundled together, the two series were entered for a 2000 Pulitzer in public service and became one of three finalists submitted by judges to the Pulitzer Board. A group of 13 Cook County assistant state’s attorneys were so alarmed by the prospect of a Tribune victory that they wrote the board a three-page letter accusing the paper of “slanted, sensational and manipulative journalism” whose only success was “in unjustly provoking public suspicion of [their] honorable profession.” The board also heard from the National District Attorneys Association, which said the Tribune entry “would be an inappropriate selection based upon the methodology…and the conclusions,” and from the Illinois State’s Attorneys Association, which called the death penalty series “grossly irresponsible.” These letters may have had no effect on the board, but it gave the Pulitzer to the Washington Post.
But Grumman has a sharp sense of what credit, and how much of it, she’s actually due. “That was David Jackson’s work,” she said. “That’s been expunged from my own resume for personal reasons. It will never appear on my bio.”
I pointed out that the headline posed a false set of alternatives. Arnett could have been both–or neither. Arguably, you don’t go on state television in the capital of the nation your country’s at war with and knock your country’s battle plan–even if it deserves to be knocked. Arguably, Arnett’s TV appearance was a shrewd investment in future scoops from Baghdad, even if what he had to say was self-serving, ingratiating blather.
“Not that I disagree with you,” said Eyre, “but the principle you just enunciated rules out half the PBS programming and every network TV show it’s worth waking up Sunday morning to watch.”
But a doctor is always a doctor. Doctors answer to a higher code, and no one questions it.
