Overview

The Joseph Pulitzer Gold Medal for meritorious public service is an unparalleled American media honor, awarded to news organizations for collaborative reporting that moves readers, provokes change, and advances the journalistic profession. Updated to reflect new winners of the Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism and the many changes in the practice and business of journalism, Pulitzer's Gold goes behind the scenes to explain the mechanics and effects of these groundbreaking works. The veteran journalist Roy J. Harris Jr. adds fascinating new detail to well-known accounts of the Washington Post investigation into the Watergate affair, the New York Times coverage of the Pentagon Papers, and the Boston Globe revelations of the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse cover-up. He examines recent Pulitzer-winning coverage of government surveillance of U.S. citizens and expands on underexplored stories, from the scandals that took down Boston financial fraud artist Charles Ponzi in 1920 to recent exposés that revealed neglect at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and municipal thievery in Bell, California. This one-hundred-year history of bold journalism follows developments in all types of reporting-environmental, business, disaster coverage, war, and more.

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9780231170284

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Reviews

Pulitzer's Gold is a deeply researched, richly anecdotal and faithfully inspirational chronicle of how relentless journalists, over the last 100 years, have exposed a remarkable assortment of ills and abuses to make the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service the global standard for excellence. Again and again, Roy Harris's smooth story-behind-the-story technique underscores the indispensable role of journalists in a free society. -- Sig Gissler, Former administrator, The Pulitzer Prizes At a time when the business model of the American newspaper lies broken, this book tells us, by vivid examples, why newspapers are essential to our national well-being. It is a sobering yet inspiring message. -- John S. Carroll, former Los Angeles Times editor and 1993-2002 Pulitzer Prize Board member

Roy Harris is the master historian of the Pulitzer Prize. He has written the real inside story of the most serious journalism of the last century, and as a result provided a brilliant portrait of America. Know your journalism, and you will know your country and its values. -- Bob Woodward, The Washington Post Pulitzer's Gold is a deeply researched, richly anecdotal and faithfully inspirational chronicle of how relentless journalists, over the last 100 years, have exposed a remarkable assortment of ills and abuses to make the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service the global standard for excellence. Again and again, Roy Harris's smooth story-behind-the-story technique underscores the indispensable role of journalists in a free society. -- Sig Gissler, Former administrator, The Pulitzer Prizes At a time when many lament a general decline in watchdog journalism, the centennial of the Pulitzer Prizes is a good time to reflect on the pivotal role the Pulitzer Gold Medal for Meritorious Public Service has played in both celebrating and encouraging public-interest journalism. There is nobody more equipped to tell a century of these riveting tales than Roy Harris Jr., as he takes us deep into some of the most engaging and impactful storytelling that has emerged from many great investigations and a continuing search for the truth. -- Raju Narisetti, Senior Vice President, News Corp Harris' Pulitzer's Gold recalls some of this nation's best journalism and tells how the stories came to be. A reporter notices an unusual data point, newsrooms publish while storms rage or human threats abound, a journalist writes like a poet, but (with) the skills of an investigative reporter. Each led to powerful news stories that improved communities. The book provides the lift we need today. It captures the passion of journalism and celebrates great works. -- Karen B. Dunlap, PhD, Poynter Institute President Emerita Noting that the 2009 and 2010 Pulitzer Prize medals for public service recognized the work of reporters who had yet to turn thirty, Roy Harris Jr. writes: How inspiring...for the crowds of college students who still see journalism as a way to change society for the better. And how true that is, as well, for this second edition of Harris's book chronicling the history of the public service prize. Harris has done a thorough-going update of his work, adding numerous new case studies of the most recent prize-winning efforts. Using an array of material - from historical archives to oral histories to interviews with current-day practitioners - he provides narratives of all 103 medal winners with in-depth treatments of a couple dozen particularly momentous pieces of journalism that often worked to create change in society and, not incidentally, went on to win journalism's most prestigious prize. The result, for those aforementioned journalism students (and their teachers), is a virtual handbook on how to pursue the big stories. Equally important for those students as well as scholars interested in the place of journalism in society, the revised book will continue to serve as a valuable resource on the development of journalism as a profession and its intersection with institutional power in the twentieth century and beyond. -- Gerry Lanosga, Indiana University At a time when the business model of the American newspaper lies broken, this book tells us, by vivid examples, why newspapers are essential to our national well-being. It is a sobering yet inspiring message. -- John S. Carroll, former Los Angeles Times editor and 1993-2002 Pulitzer Prize Board member Roy J. Harris Jr. has not only provided us with excellent examples of the stories that shape our world--from Watergate to 9/11 to the Catholic Church priest scandal to Hurricane Katrina to Walter Reed to Edward Snowden--he gives us context, including his illuminating interviews with the reporters and editors that produced the stories. It all makes for a riveting book and a primer for doing important journalism. Pulitzer's Gold: A Century of Public Service Journalism is a must-read for anyone who cares about journalism or democracy, which should be all of us.

At a time when the business model of the American newspaper lies broken, this book tells us, by vivid examples, why newspapers are essential to our national well-being. It is a sobering yet inspiring message. -- John S. Carroll, former Los Angeles Times editor and 1993-2002 Pulitzer Prize Board member

Author Information

Roy J. Harris Jr. spent over two decades as a Wall Street Journal reporter, including six years as deputy chief of its Los Angeles bureau. He then spent thirteen years as senior editor of The Economist's CFO Magazine. Early in his career, he reported for the Los Angeles Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He lives in Hingham, Massachusetts.

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