Roy J. Harris Jr. writes over at Poynter about the “evaporated” buzz about this year’s top journalism prize.
Why has discussion nearly evaporated this year about who will win in the 14 Pulitzer journalism categories? (There are also seven prestigious Pulitzers for arts-and-letters and music, of course.) In addition to a shrinking supply side ? with fewer journalists these days trying to pry the names of finalists from jurors who met at Columbia University March 7-9 ? it could be argued that there?s a much weaker demand side, too.
In part, the decreased pre-Pulitzer interest stems from the explosion of other, earlier journalism-award announcements. These prizes put the 19 Pulitzer Prize board members in the position of annointing work that is at the very top of an existing pyramid of winners. Plus, interest in the Pulitzers may be tempered because of their relative narrowness. Nearly all the other awards honor top work across the platforms of newspaper, online, broadcast and magazine ? and, increasingly, for collaboration among the media.
I’ve mentioned it before how eerie how quiet it has been. We’ll found out the winners 3:00 EST today. I’ll be here ready to post the winners.