With total predictability, the names of this year's Pulitzer prizewinners* were emblazoned in the nation's press last week. As usual, the awards evoked everything from applause to astonishment (see next story). Ironically, what made the big news was a Pulitzer non-prizewinner.
By unanimous vote, the Pulitzer Advisory Board handed the "distinguished biography" award ($500) to William A. Swanberg's Citizen Hearst (Scribner; $7.50), a meticulously impartial study of the Hearst publishing empire's progenitor. Instead of ratifying the board's choice, however, trustees of New York's Columbia University chose to overrule it by awarding no biography prize at all.
Popping a Precedent. Never before in Pulitzer...