Pulitzer Shucks! And Congrats Anyway!

The 2011 Pulitzer Prizes were announced earlier this afternoon and the Las Vegas Sun's Marshall Allen and Alex Richards were not winners. They had been favored after sweeping several pre-Pulitzer honors for investigative journalism, but in the end they were considered -- and then passed over -- in the Local News Reporting category. The winners were the team of Frank Main, Mark Konkol and John J. Kim of the Chicago Sun-Times for coverage of street violence and difficulties getting witnesses to talk. Zzzzz.

Here's what the Pulitzer gang wrote about the Sun's "Do No Harm" package:

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Marshall Allen and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun for their compelling reports on patients who suffered preventable injuries and other harm during hospital care, taking advantage of print and digital tools to drive home their findings

If you want to know to whom to send newspaper-wrapped dead fish, here's the jury.

You can read overview Pulitzer coverage from The New Yorker blog, but odds are good this is the only place -- other than the Sun, perhaps -- where you're likely to get any Vegas/Nevada-related news or analysis. It's too bad because just being a finalist is a gigantic honor, and this is only the second time in Vegas media history that even that has occurred. Let's see if the R-J, when they run the wire copy they'll run tomorrow, bothers to stick in that local angle.

It was surprising that Allen & Richards didn't end up in the Public Service category, which is what Alexandra Berzon and the Sun gang won for in 2009 for their series on deaths at the CityCenter construction project. The winner for Public Service this year was the L.A. Times for its expose on corruption in the tiny city of Bell, Calif. In the Investigative Reporting category, which is the other logical home for the Sun's medical series, the winner was Paige St. John of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for pieces on the property insurance system in Florida. I'm sure St. John's stuff was terrific, but I do wonder if it saved any lives, as the Sun's work did.

A couple others that I care about include Chicago Tribune columnist and former Brenda Starr writer Mary Schmich getting a finalist nod and Mike Keefe of the Denver Post winning for Best Cartoonist. I keep wondering if the Sun has ever entered Mike Smith, their ace cartoonist whose work is reprinted all over the country.

Just so y'all know, I wasn't the only one thinking the Sun could nail its second Pulitzer in three years. Earlier today before the announcement, Pulitzer expert Roy Harris handicapped it for Poynter.Org thus:

If there are front-runners for the 2011 Pulitzer mix, then, this last-minute review suggests they are:

• The L.A. Times for its “Breach of Faith” Bell, California salary disclosures – rooting out wrongdoing with classic reporting techniques prized by the editors who dominate the Pulitzer Board (Selden Ring Award winner, IRE award winner, George Polk Award winner)
• The Las Vegas Sun for “Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas” (Goldsmith Prize winner, Scripps Howard award winner)
• The Seattle Times for the “Seniors for Sale” (Worth Bingham Prize winner) or “The Other Side of Mercy” (IRE award winner)

Then, finally, don’t forget to factor in those Pulitzer Board surprises.

Yes, those surprises. The Seattle Times, it turned out, wasn't a finalist in any category.

I was waiting in the lobby at the Sun at noon today to see what would happen, having asked but been refused access to the newsroom for The Moment. Alas, their loss was also mine, as suddenly I had the afternoon free on account of AOL/HuffPo not wanting the feature I had planned on The Odd Little Vegas Paper That Could. Bummer.

Oh well. Good try, guys. You should all be proud nonetheless.

Monday Is Pulitzer Day!

Somewhere around noon PT on Monday, we find out if the Sun has done the improbable and won its second Pulitzer Prize in three years. Last time out, it was a surprise even to the reporter, Alexandra Berzon, who did it. This time, as I've been chronicling for months now, the "Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas" series picked up two of the biggest pre-Pulitzer honors, Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and Best of Show at the National Headliners Awards in Atlantic City.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, and you can find out here once it's out. Landing just one is super-impressive, but nabbing two in three years for a small entity like the Sun would be absolutely amazing. And all I know is that the health series by led by Marshall Allen and Alex Richards is in the mix. I've no idea if Jon Ralston's work as columnist is in contention -- his work in the Reid-Angle and Ensign matters would absolutely be worthy if he were at the New York Times or similar -- or Mike Smith, the cartoonist who has gone far too long without proper national recognition.

Anyhow, here's the list of those who may by this time tomorrow be able to claim a Pulitzer to their credit:


Good luck to all. Make Vegas journalism proud.

Las Vegas Sun v. Reader Nastygrams: Duh, Winning

It's become so routine in recent weeks to take stock of yet another major laurel for the Las Vegas Sun's "Do No Harm" series led by Marshall Allen and Alex Richards, and this weekend they netted yet another triumph en route to becoming the favorite for the paper's second Pulitzer in three years. So congrats to all involved yet again for winning Best of Show at the National Headliners Awards in Atlantic City. Nicely done.

But the more interesting development from the NHA honors over the weekend was first-place recognition of the LasVegasSun.Com for "journalistic innovation" for "Attempting to Elevate Online Commentary." Here is how the Sun itself described what it's done:

In winning the innovation award, the Sun was recognized for successfully tackling a problem that has bedeviled online journalism ever since the door was opened for readers to comment about stories. The practice has frequently devolved into vitriolic exchanges among readers hiding behind anonymous handles.

The Sun instituted a two-tiered reader comment system, allowing those who prove their identity and register on the site to comment on stories. Those comments remain permanently attached to the story after it is archived.

Other comments, by unregistered readers, are attached to the story but can only be viewed by linking to them on a separate page, and are removed after 72 hours.

That's pretty interesting. Anyone in the media biz knows that reader comments can be useful and enlightening but that unrestrained anonymous blather is counterproductive and cowardly. Back when AOL News decided to freeze all comments for a while as they tried to figure out how to tame this beast, I received countless angry emails -- almost all anonymous, of course -- saying someone had robbed them of their Constitutionally protected right to free speech. Most sites, including AOL, have reverted to allowing someone else to verify the poster's identity via an AOL or Facebook account, for instance, but that's easy to game, too.


Of course, this problem isn't new and it's not restricted to the Web. It's just that because the Internet has made it so much easier, the lunatic letters have completely lost their charm.

Charm? Well, sure. Pretty much every reporter with a sense of humor who has worked for a while has a classic nastygram tacked to their cubicle wall from a completely unhinged reader. Back when it took real effort to do so, there was a peculiar respect owed to whoever did it. Also, it's hilarious how self-important, arrogant and petty people can be when you don't actually have to interact with them.

It still happens, of course, which is why the Las Vegas Weekly ran in print this image of a wonderful bit of prose from "Sucker's Advocate" that came in on a quaint ol' postcard -- Constitutional rights fully intact! -- to editor Ken Miller:


Ken is my editor, by the by. And while this is a fun one, it's not nearly as directly insulting to Ken himself as my all-time classic. It came 12 years ago, also by postcard, when I was covering the county commission for the Review-Journal. It was in response to this hard-hitting piece on the opening of one of the first of those oxygen bars. Yes, this is the stuff that got someone fired up enough to do this:


Frown face!

Now, had this been posted in the comments section of a website, I probably never would have noticed it. Instead, it's always on my desk along with my other favorite keepsakes such as these:


OK, time to do some paying work. Happy Monday and congrats again to the Sun peeps.

Sun Wins Pre-Pulitzer Prize! (And The RJ Changes Pollsters)

[UPDATE: Marshall Allen leaves the Sun for the nonprofit investigative journalism organization Pro Publica tomorrow. CONGRATS!]


Here we go, Vegas! The Las Vegas Sun is -- as I said a few weeks ago -- a serious threat for its second Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in three years after tonight's huge triumph as winners of the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting from Harvard's Shorenstein Center.

Reporters Marshall Allen and Alex Richards landed the $25,000 award, a predictor of Pulitzer finalists, for the investigative report "Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas."

Bravo. The Pulitzers are announced in mid-April. A very big deal.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the new Review-Journal regime continues the mopping up job. Yesterday, they ran a big poll in the Vegas mayor's race. This is the big picture:


But this here is the news:


Their new pollster is Magellan Research. They dumped Mason Dixon, it appears. Which makes sense since they had the polling completely bass-akward in the Reid-Angle race and mislead the national press in the process. You know how it's an improvement? I don't recall Jon Ralston making any remarks at all about the methodology.

Puzzling over the R-J's circulation gain

The latest newspaper circulation data was released today and it was horrifying. The New York Times has shed 7.2% and is now below 1 million in sales per weekday, USA Today dropped 17 percent and lost its No. 1 ranking to the Wall Street Journal, and overall average daily circulation plunged 10.6 percent. See the report and list here.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal, somewhat surprisingly, defied this trend in dramatic fashion. The circulation data is up 6.56 percent from 165,011 to 175,841. A small handful of papers went up.

I thought I had a hunch as to what had happened here. The reporting period was from April to October of 2009, and in April of 2009 came the single most significant moment in Nevada journalism, the Las Vegas Sun's Pulitzer Prize for Public Service reporting on the construction deaths at CityCenter. Could it be that the public thought, "Huh, that's a big deal, maybe I should take another look at the local paper"? Such an event wouldn't move the needle in a place like New York or Los Angeles where Pulitzers are a dime a dozen, but in a city of rootless migrants, maybe there's a curiosity effect similar to when a little movie wins an Oscar?

Would that it were so. And how bizarre that I've been disabused of my theory by none other than the Review-Journal's own brass. In Joe Strupp's Editor & Publisher report about the few circulation jumpers is this passage:

At the Las Vegas Review-Journal, executive are crediting their 6.56% increase, from 165,011 to 175,841, to a simple change in ABC rules that allow the paper's electronic edition to be counted in total circulation.

Steve Coffeen, director of corporate circulation for Stephens Media, which owns the Review-Journal, says the paper's print circulation is actually down seven percent daily and four percent on Sunday.

"I would say all of it is based on the electronic edition," Coffeen said of the increase. "We have about 20,000 electronic subscribers who were not allowed to be included before because of pricing rules. We didn't change anything, they changed the rules."

What a disappointment. Also, a curiosity. He says there are 20,000 electronic subscribers? I assume this is the electronic edition that looks just like the actual paper, not people who read stuff on their website. I must say, I have never, ever met or had any communication with anyone who subscribed to the local newspaper this way. You'd think the people who did so would be techies who also read blogs and such. Right? They're saying more than 11 percent of their readership does this?

Does that make sense?

Lame. Lame. Lame.

It's terrific that the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote an editorial today congratulating the Las Vegas Sun and reporter Alexandra Berzon for winning a Pulitzer Prize yesterday. But I was a bit in disbelief that they couldn't be bothered to assign a reporter to cover perhaps the most significant journalistic triumph in the history of the state. Instead, they buried the news on page 3B of the local-news section and used an Associated Press piece by Ken Ritter.

Oh, you're saying, of course they wouldn't want to put much effort into exalting their competition!

Except that that's the standard. The Detroit Free Press also won a Pulitzer yesterday and its bitter rival, the Detroit News, had staffer Francis X. Donnelly do a piece on it. The St. Petersburg Times won two and their chief competitor, the Tampa Tribune, had staffer Walt Belcher write it up. And every newspaper in New York City wrote their own stories about The New York Times' feat of five Pulitzers.

I have a theory. If the R-J had to actually cover the Sun's Pulitzer, it probably would've meant calling on the Classiest Publisher in America to make a comment. And he was very, very busy yesterday using his uberclassy blog to foment the view that teabagging is a gay sex act. It's called the Urban Dictionary. Look it up.

Las Vegas Sun Wins Pulitzer Prize!

Wow. For years I've been saying that there were Pulitzers waiting to be won in this town. And now, finally, someone's won one. Here's what the Pulitzer folks wrote in giving the Las Vegas Sun its most coveted prize, for public service:

Awarded to the Las Vegas Sun, and notably the courageous reporting by Alexandra Berzon, for the exposure of the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip amid lax enforcement of regulations, leading to changes in policy and improved safety conditions.

Head to the Las Vegas Sun to see the award-winning work and some terrific online presentations, too. While Berzon deserves most of the glory here, the category honors the overall effort of the news organization and content that includes "editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics and online material."

And since the Sun folks probably won't do this, allow me the honor of rubbing it in the face of the Classiest Publisher in America. Having to do this...


...must just KILL him. I just can't wait to see how they cover it in tomorrow's Las Vegas Sun wrap-around. I'd love to think that this might motivate the R-J chiefs to kick it up a notch and give some of their terrific reporters the time, money and opportunity to do the sort of work, but that's just crazy talk!