16 April 2013

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Important 8 Facts about Pulitzer Prizes Short Biography of JOSEPH PULITZER

Know Important 8 Facts about Pulitzer Prizes Short Biography of JOSEPH PULITZER


1-
Who designed the Pulitzer Prize gold medal?
The medal was designed by sculptor Daniel Chester French

2-
Who was the only U.S. president to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize?
John F. Kennedy was awarded the 1957 Pulitzer Prize in Biography for his book "Profiles in Courage"

3-
Who was the first African-American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize?
Gwendolyn Brooks was awarded the 1950 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for "Annie Allen."

4-
Who designed the Pulitzer Prize gold medal?
The medal was designed by sculptor Daniel Chester French.

5-
Are the Pulitzer Prizes awarded at a ceremony?
The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded at a luncheon in late May, about a month after the names of the winners have been announced. The luncheon takes place at Low Library on the Columbia University campus.

6-
What do Pulitzer Prizewinners get when they win?
There are 21 Pulitzer categories.
In 20 of those categories, the winners receive a $10,000 cash award and a certificate.
Only the winner in the Public Service category of the Journalism competition is awarded a gold medal.
The Public Service prize is always awarded to a news organization, not an individual, although an individual may be named in the citation.

7-
Is there a Pulitzer Prize logo?
No, there is no logo for The Pulitzer Prize.

8-
How is "Pulitzer" pronounced?
The correct pronunciation is "PULL it  sir."

9-
Short Biography of  JOSEPH PULITZER -  1847–1911

Joseph Pulitzer was born in Mako, Hungary on April 10, 1847, the son of a wealthy grain merchant of Magyar-Jewish origin and a German mother
His younger brother, Albert, was trained for the priesthood but never attained it. The elder Pulitzer retired in Budapest and Joseph grew up and was educated there in private schools and by tutors.

He was fluent in German and French but spoke very little English. Later, he worked his way to St. Louis. While doing odd jobs there, such as muleteer, baggage handler, and waiter

His great career opportunity came in a unique manner in the library's chess room. Observing the game of two habitues, he astutely critiqued a move and the players, impressed, engaged Pulitzer in conversation. The players were editors of the leading German language daily,  Westliche Post, and a job offer followed.

Four years later, in 1872, the young Pulitzer, who had built a reputation as a tireless enterprising journalist, was offered a controlling interest in the paper by the nearly bankrupt owners. At age 25, Pulitzer became a publisher and there followed a series of shrewd business deals from which he emerged in 1878 as the owner of the  St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and a rising figure on the journalistic scene.

Earlier in the same year, he and Kate Davis, a socially prominent Washingtonian woman, were married in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Hungarian immigrant youth - once a vagrant on the slum streets of St. Louis and taunted as "Joey the Jew" - had been transformed. Now he was an American citizen and as speaker, writer, and editor had mastered English extraordinarily well. Elegantly dressed, wearing a handsome, reddish-brown beard and pince-nez glasses, he mixed easily with the social elite of St. Louis, enjoying dancing at fancy parties and horseback riding in the park. This lifestyle was abandoned abruptly when he came into the ownership of the    St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

James Wyman Barrett, the last city editor of  The New York World, records in his biography  Joseph Pulitzer and His World how Pulitzer, in taking hold of the  Post-Dispatch, "worked at his desk from early morning until midnight or later, interesting himself in every detail of the paper." Appealing to the public to accept that his paper was their champion, Pulitzer splashed investigative articles and editorials assailing government corruption, wealthy tax-dodgers, and gamblers. This populist appeal was effective, circulation mounted, and the paper prospered. Pulitzer would have been pleased to know that in the conduct of the Pulitzer Prize system which he later established, more awards in journalism would go to exposure of corruption than to any other subject.

In 1909,   The World exposed a fraudulent payment of $40 million by the United States to the French Panama Canal Company. The federal government lashed back at The World by indicting Pulitzer for criminally libeling President Theodore Roosevelt and the banker J.P. Morgan, among others. Pulitzer refused to retreat, and   The World persisted in its investigation. When the courts dismissed the indictments, Pulitzer was applauded for a crucial victory on behalf of freedom of the press.

In May 1904, writing in  The North American Review in support of his proposal for the founding of a school of journalism, Pulitzer summarized his credo: "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations."


In the latter years of the 19th century, Joseph Pulitzer stood out as the very embodiment of American journalism. Hungarian-born, an intense indomitable figure, Pulitzer was the most skillful of newspaper publishers, a passionate crusader against dishonest government, a fierce, hawk-like competitor who did not shrink from sensationalism in circulation struggles, and a visionary who richly endowed his profession.

His innovative New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reshaped newspaper journalism. Pulitzer was the first to call for the training of journalists at the university level in a school of journalism. And certainly, the lasting influence of the Pulitzer Prizes on journalism, literature, music, and drama is to be attributed to his visionary acumen.

In 1912, one year after Pulitzer's death aboard his yacht, the Columbia School of Journalism was founded, and the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in 1917 under the supervision of the advisory board to which he had entrusted his mandate. Pulitzer envisioned an advisory board composed principally of newspaper publishers. Others would include the president of Columbia University and scholars, and "persons of distinction who are not journalists or editors." Today, the 19-member board is composed mainly of leading editors or news executives. Four academics also serve, including the president of Columbia University and the dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. The dean and the administrator of the prizes are non-voting members. The chair rotates annually to the most senior member. The board is self-perpetuating in the election of members. Voting members may serve three terms of three years. In the selection of the members of the board and of the juries, close attention is given to professional excellence and affiliation, as well as diversity in terms of gender, ethnic background, geographical distribution and size of newspaper.

Pulitzer's Flexible Will –
In writing his 1904 will, which made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence, Pulitzer specified solely four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one for education, and four traveling scholarships. In letters, prizes were to go to an American novel, an original American play performed in New York, a book on the history of the United States, an American biography, and a history of public service by the press.

But, sensitive to the dynamic progression of his society, Pulitzer made provision for broad changes in the system of awards. He established an overseer advisory board and willed it "power in its discretion to suspend or to change any subject or subjects, substituting, however, others in their places, if in the judgment of the board such suspension, changes, or substitutions shall be conducive to the public good or rendered advisable by public necessities, or by reason of change of time." He also empowered the board to withhold any award where entries fell below its standards of excellence. The assignment of power to the board was such that it could also overrule the recommendations for awards made by the juries subsequently set up in each of the categories.
Thus, the Plan of Award, which has governed the prizes since their inception in 1917, has been revised frequently. The Board, later renamed the Pulitzer Prize Board, has increased the number of awards to 21 and introduced poetry, music, and photography as subjects, while adhering to the spirit of the founder's will and its intent.

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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

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4 comments:

MEcoy April 16, 2013  

he's a noble man indeed

Destination Infinity April 16, 2013  

Good to know the short biography of the person behind Pulitzer prize. We need to have an equivalent prize for publications in India... Maybe there is?

Destination Infinity