I’d planned to write about something else today, but it can wait. The 2008 Pulitzer Prizes came out yesterday, the newspaper industry’s highest honors. The Washington Post won six, a record for the paper, including the esteemed Public Service award for its reports on sub-par treatment of war veterans at Walter Reed Hospital. The paper also won awards for its coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre, private security contractors in Iraq and Dick Cheney’s influence on vice presidency.
It’s times like these I’m proud to be a reporter. I don’t work in a newsroom and haven’t for years. But I’m still a news person at heart. I’m proud of my profession and the work it produces. It’s been a rough year for reporters. Newsrooms jobs are disappearing faster than melting winter snow. Ad revenue has taken a nose dive. The ownership of some of the country’s biggest, most prestigious papers has changed hands – the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times – and nobody really knows what will happen because of it. This year’s Pulitzers show that, despite it all, newspapers continue to produce thought-provoking, important work, that they still play an important role in our society and in our lives.
A confession. In years past, the first Monday in April, the day the Pulitzer awards are announced, hasn’t been a good one for me. As I read stories about former colleagues such as James Grimaldi, Tracy Weber and Michele Nicolosi who earned Pulitzers for their accomplishments, it drove home the reality of the career path I’ve chosen as an independent writer. Freelancing has given me many things, including the flexibility to be my own boss, work where and when I want on projects of my own choosing, and more than anything, allowed me to have a family and a career on my own terms. I don’t regret my decision. But there’s been that twinge, that little “If only…,” that curiosity about what could have been if I’d chosen differently.
As the newsrooms of yesterday disintegrate, the time is approaching when many other former staff writers could join the freelance world. Some already have, and used the opportunity to start blogs or online news organizations to pursue good old-fashioned investigative journalism, the kind recognized by Pulitzers and journalism’s other honors. As I watch this unfold, I am excited for what it could mean for the future of the profession and the future of online news.
So today I am not sad, I am proud. Proud to call myself a reporter.
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You should be proud. You’re a great reporter. Keep up the excellent writing and thanks for today’s inspiring words.
Michelle,
a good reflection and a point of view that needs to be heard. I get the if only part, although the path I left was a different one.
it was the right choice for me, too.
this is the year Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer for music, though, and he’s certainly followed his own path. who knows what the future may hold?