Public service Pulitzer to be opened to online journalism by newspapers

Web posted November 18, 1997

By Tim Whitmire
Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Newspapers seeking the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for public service will be able to include online journalism in their entries, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced Monday.

The unanimous decision to allow online work in the public service competition was made at the board's annual fall meeting, held last Friday at Columbia University, Pulitzer Prize administrator Seymour Topping said.

Newspapers seeking the public service prize based on work published in 1998 will be allowed to submit a single CD-Rom whose content was staff-produced and made available on the paper's World Wide Web site, Topping said.

``If a paper has a story of some importance and it decides to elaborate on or illustrate the story further, or make some arrangement for interactive responses of readers to that story'' through the paper's Web site, that material could be included on the CD-Rom, Topping said.

Including online journalism is particularly appropriate to the public service prize, Topping said, because the prize is designed to reward papers that make full use of all journalistic resources in presenting a story.

``It's not as dramatic, I am sure, as some who would advocate recognition of online journalism would hope for, but I think all of us on the board think that it's significant,'' said Geneva Overholser, president of this year's Pulitzer board and ombudsman at The Washington Post.

``We do this in recognition that online journalism is an important part of what newspapers do,'' she said.

Topping said the board was inspired to examine the issue after receiving two entries for this year's public service award that included CD-Roms with material that had been posted on newspapers' Web sites.

One was an Internet presentation about Bosnia, titled ``Uncertain Paths to Peace,'' submitted by The New York Times; the other was from the Sun Herald of Charlotte Harbor, Fla., for its online presentation of ``Our Town: Charlotte.'' Both entries had to be disqualified, Topping said, because online journalism was not included in the entry requirements.

``In both cases, particularly with the case of The New York Times, it was obvious that the entries were made to put the whole issue on the table,'' Topping said.

This year's public service prize was won by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans for a series examining how overfishing and pollution are devastating the oceans.

A committee headed by John L. Dotson Jr., president and publisher of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, studied the issue and submitted the proposal approved by the board Friday, Topping said.

With online journalism still in its infancy, Overholser said the board's decision is a logical first step.

``There was certainly a caution, I think, on all our parts,'' she added. ``It's a kind of wild and woolly world (online). It's very much in formulation. ...

``This is a step that we feel comfortable with now and that will give us an experience with online journalism. We'll see how well it works. ... (A) number of us on the board feel excited and hopeful about what might be the next step -- not that any of us purports to know what that might be.''