Yesterday afternoon, the 2019 Pulitzer Prizes were announced. The media likes to give itself awards, much like Hollywood does and the Pulitzer Prizes are the most prestigious of all.
First up on the anti-Trump roster is the award for Explanatory Reporting and the winner is “an exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trump’s finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges. (Moved by the Board from the Investigative Reporting category, where it was also entered.)” The authors are David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times.
Next up, we have the award for National Reporting and the winner is the staff of Glenn Simpson’s old stomping grounds, The Wall Street Journal for “uncovering President Trump’s secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment.”
The staff of Reuters won the Pulitzer for Breaking Photography for “a vivid and startling visual narrative of the urgency, desperation and sadness of migrants as they journeyed to the U.S. from Central and South America.” So, so sad. Why won’t Trump let them in?
Related, we have the award for Breaking News Reporting which was awarded to the staff of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for “immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.” Not explicitly Trump-related, but the gunman posted anti-Semitic things on Gab and hated immigrants so, let’s call it Trump-adjacent.
It should come as no surprise that many of the winners are anti-Trump or anti-Trump adjacent. The media covers mostly anti-Trump stories. Who is looking into the abuse of the intelligence community by the Obama administration when it surveilled an opposition party’s presidential campaign? Where is that story among the Pulitzer nominees? It doesn’t exist, despite ample evidence uncovered and reported by non-traditional outlets that there is a serious scandal.
How about Luke Rosiak at The Daily Caller who uncovered that the Pakistani spy family of Imran Awan, employed by 45 House Democrats, was stealing tax-payer funded computer equipment, logging in (unauthorized) to congressmen’s various accounts and vacuuming up incredibly large amount of data off government computers? Did any one of the Pulitzer nominees pick up that ball and run with it? It sure seems like a big story.
I guess not. Congratulations to all the winners.
Image from Getty Images.