[pulitzer prize]
North Dakota has a remarkable record with the Pulitzer Prizes.
NORTH DAKOTA AND THE PULITZER PRIZES
Three prizes were earned in North Dakota; another three were earned by journalists raised or educated in North Dakota. One prize winner moved to North Dakota—to teach—after receiving his award. North Dakotans have won for drama and ficton. The last two prizes, in history, involved North Dakota subjects. That makes ten prizes. Add two named finalists, one in North Dakota and another who moved here, also to teach. Finalists aren’t quite prize winners, but they are close. Their work stood out enough to be recognized. They are honorees. That brings the count to thirteen for winners or finalists with North Dakota connections. Of these, three were newspapers, not individuals.
NEWSPAPERS
The three prizes earned in North Dakota went to daily newspapers. Two were for Public Service. This is “the most prized Pulitzer,” says Roy Harris Jr. in his book Pulitzer’s Gold. The Bismarck Tribune won in 1938 and the Grand Forks Herald in 1998. The Forum of FargoMoorhead won a Pulitzer for Local Reporting in 1958. It is important to remember that prizes are awarded for work published in the previous year. Journalism honored in 1938, for example, was published in 1937. This is the case with the Bismarck Tribune’s Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The Tribune’s Pulitzer was for a series called “Self-Help in the Dust Bowl.” This was conceived and executed by George Mann, editor and publisher of the Tribune, but he died before the prize was awarded. As it happens, the Tribune was not an automatic winner. “Jurors called it a tie in 1938,” Harris wrote. The other contender was the San Francisco News, which had embarked on a crusade against vice and corruption. The judges decided that the Dust Bowl project was more timely. The Tribune had actually underplayed the series, giving it front page play but without the big headlines and huge photographs that came to characterize American newspaper journalism. The story count on the Tribune’s front page of July 22, 1937, was twenty-three—that is, twenty-three separate stories. An article that was part of the Tribune’s entry is the third “play story” among
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By Mike Jacobs
