The Wall Street Journal's backdating reporting is short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize, Editor & Publisher magazine's website revealed this afternoon. Less than one day after the Pulitzer juries completed three days of judging at Columbia University, E&P has published what it describes as "a likely list of eight of the 14 journalism finalist groups." Among those groups is the Pulitzer for "Public Service" journalism, with the Wall Street Journal named as a finalist for its work on the backdating story.
The Journal broke the backdating story wide-open last year when it followed up on the work of academics whose studies had shown that hundreds of companies had granted stock options dated on days when the price of their stock was hitting historic lows. The likelihood of this being a coincidence, the academics, concluded was extremely unlikely. Far more likely was that companies had gone back and dated—or backdated—the grants to match the dates when shares hit lows, making the grants potentially more valuable to recipients than if they had been granted on dates when the share price was higher. When the Journal began naming the names of companies who had likely engaged in backdating, public scandal ensued.
Of course, there have been serious questions raised about whether the front-page scandalizing, perp-walk style coverage has helped or distorted the public understanding of backdating, and whether the Journal and others were over-hyping the scandal. But the Pulitzer juries have spoken. And it looks like the Journal is climbing its way toward the prize. Whether it climbed a mountain or molehill, well, the jury is still out on that one.
FLASH: Here We Go Again -- Pulitzer Finalists Leaked! [Editor & Publisher]
Posted by , Mar 08, 2007 5:05PM
Ooooh, that must really get your goat!
Posted by Atl_Boy , Mar 09, 2007 10:51AM
With all due respect, what kind of "gravitas" does one give to these awards, when a left-wing idiot like Cynthia Tucker (AJC) gets nominated for editorial related content. I mean, she is one of the most extreme, tree hugging, vacuous people one will ever encounter -- she writes for a paper that is in one of the most conservative states in the nation. There is an absolute disconnect between us readers in the Atlanta area (except for liberal pockets) and what she opines for our local paper.
Need one say, that she got her goddamn job because she is a "female, African American". I am gonna stick my neck out and say this -- I am not suprised that she got this nomination because of that cool combo of her skin color and her gender. This makes the Pulitzer folks so accomodative and "inclusive".
Do we need to compromise excellence in the name of affirmative action? I would not have minded if Cynthia Tucker was intelligent and made indepth comments to make her point-of-view. However, she is none of the above and one cannot understand why such vermin gets recognized?
Blame it on white guilt, folks.