The Pulitzer Prize Selection Committee: What Were They Thinking?

As many may have heard, this year's Pulitzer Prizes were recently announced, with the awards ceremony to take place some time next month. While most winners were hardly surprising (Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe for National Reporting and Brett Blackledge of The Birmingham News for Investigative Reporting), there was one result which shocked many across the nation.

The category of Letters, Drama and Music saw what perhaps may be the most unexpected upset in Pulitzer history, with the prize for Fiction being awarded to Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf) in a narrowly contested race against Fox News. While McCarthy may have certainly written something that passes for a "novel" acclaimed by "literary critics", its quality never approached the exceptionally imaginative creativity displayed by the Republican-controlled Fox News channel since its inception.

Ranging from tear-jerking, emotional drama to brilliantly comedic moments in their quest to produce the very best in American fiction, they have consistently succeeded in having countless viewers suspend any and all disbelief -- which is the true hallmark of their success. No one else reaches the same level of expertise in mastering such literary conventions as the hyperbole, irony and assonance. And no one else has the imagination to use them.

With yet another egregious defeat in this category, many have called Fox "The Susan Lucci of News Channels", as they are passed over year after year. And after this latest expected win transformed into yet another shocking loss, other more astute observers now ask "Are the Pulitzer Prizes still even relevant?"

Perhaps we shall be answered next year.



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