Heavy medals - journalism awards

Washington Monthly, March, 1993 by David Segal

Awards! That's all they do is give out awards, I can't believe it. "Greatest Fascist Dictator: Adolph Hitler."

He was razzing Hollywood, but Woody Allen's joke works just as well with journalism, a field in which fascist dictators are about the only crowd left without their very own award niche. Reporters covering reconstructive surgery of the face, head and neck, for instance, can win a plaque and cash from the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Fashion writers who've penned something snazzy about men's wear can apply for the Aldo Awards. A thoroughbred horse-racing aficionado? Go for the Eclipse award. A bowling fan? Send the American Bowling Congress awards some clips and you could be $3,800 in Bowling Magazine gift certificates in the black. And don't panic if you write stories about radiology, interpersonal violence, arthritis, the Michigan justice system, or cholesterol. There are prizes for them too.

Some awards are so specialized that they seem to have been created with the winner in mind. How many people are even eligible for the Master Editor "Golden Em" Award, which honors a Southern Illinois editor of a high-quality newspaper with 20 or more years of experience? Other awards you could apply for but wouldn't want. I'd happily pocket the thousand dollars that comes with the Engineering/Land Surveying Communications Award, but only if I could pass on the requisite trip to the association's annual meeting. The Best of the West award sounds like something worth winning, but it's unlikely you'd recoup the $10 application fee if you hocked the grand prize--a medallion.

Even celebrities are getting into the game. Former tabloid plaintiff Carol Burnett gives out an ethics-in-journalism prize through the University of Hawaii. Isaiah Thomas, of all people, gives one out through the Rochester Institute of Technology, of all places. Gerald Ford doles out two prizes that are largely ignored, Hugh Hefner gives out one that is highly coveted (first place is $5,000, and the luncheon has potential). Big business has followed suit. Now offering Oscars of their own are General Motors, Westinghouse, JC Penney, Nestle, New Jersey Bell, and Miller Lite, which gives one out for writing about women in sports. A few conventions-worth of professional associations--from chiropractors to aircraft owners--have joined the fun too.

These awards, in combination with the handful that journalists actually know about and want, make the industry among the most over-decorated in America. And more arrive all the time. The 1988 edition of Awards, Honors, and Prizes found 170 journalism awards; the 1992 edition found over 300.

Which leads to an obvious question: So what? "Some glitter more than others, but can you have too many diamonds?" asks Livingston Award director Charles Eisendrath. Indeed, if executives at Nestle want to write reporters checks, let them. Does anyone believe that the company's baby formula scandal, for instance, would have been overlooked simply because of a contest? Above all else, news folk love good stories and generally speaking they'd sooner eat their young than let the memory of an engraving and a check stand between them and a scoop. Nor, one suspects, will prizes cause journalists to neglect unawarded topics to focus where the laurels are. Sure, the Capt. Fred E. Lawton Boating Award's $1,000 and pair of captain's decanters make an enticing package, but will there be more pieces about marine safety because of them?

Which is not to say that awards don't matter. Landing a prestigious award can be a boost for morale, a leg up for a career, even a boon to the bottom line for today's ad-starved magazines and newspapers. The question is how awards have influenced the business and, more specifically, whether they have produced better journalism. The answer to that last question, alas, is both yes and no. Journalism's growing trophy culture is not entirely good news for journalism.

Win, place, and show-off

The proliferation of prizes has clearly added a superfluous layer of credentialism to the business. Increasingly, reporters are only as good as what they've won. Ask a newsroom veteran to fax you a bio these days and you're more likely to get a litany of honors than a resume. National Public Radio's press releases on new hires usually ballyhoo little more than prizes. Many newspapers and radio stations pressure their employees to spend time filling out applications. ABC News values awards enough to employ two people whose full-time job is landing them for shows, correspondents, and producers.

But when they are little more than resume ornaments and revenue enhancers, prizes aren't really doing their job. For readers, the case for awards is that they can correct the limits of the marketplace by bringing about public service journalism that is excellent and necessary but not always lucrative.

That's where prestigious honors are supposed to come in. The great five-part thumbsucker series that has long been a staple of newspaper journalism, the dull piece that's worthy but won't help sales--these species might have vanished from the planet years ago were it not for the Pulitzers. "With some of these stories, editors are not necessarily thinking of readers," says Ken Auletta, who writes a media column for The New Yorker. "When the Chicago Tribune does a huge take-out on the underclass, you can bet they've got one eye cocked toward the Pulitzer." Last year Minneapolis's Star Tribune did a 25-part series on how to care for the aged. The Richmond Times-Dispatch published thousands of column inches in tens of stories on shrink-swell soil and its destructive effects on a planned community. Chances are these articles would have been written no matter what, but it's less likely that they'd have gotten the same in-depth treatment were it not for the Pulitzer committee, which, by the way, is where both of these series was sent.