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Pulitzers Go to Washington Post, Frankel, ‘Championship Season’

Pulitzers Go to Washington Post, Frankel, ‘Championship Season’
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May 8, 1973, Page 1Buy Reprints
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The 1973 Pulitzer Prize for public service in journalism was awarded yesterday to The Washington Post for its investigation of the Watergate case, the affair that began with an attempt to bug Democratic National Headquarters last June and grew into a national scandal last month.

David S. Broder, a political reporter and columnist for The Post, also won a prize. He was cited in the category of commentary.

Max Frankel of The New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Mr. Frankel, now the Sunday editor of The Times, won the prize for his coverage of President Nixon's trip to China.

The drama prize went to Jason Miller for “That Championship Season,” a play about the reunion of a high Ahool basketball team and its old coach. It was first produced at Joseph Papp's Public Theater after Mr. Miller, who is now 34 years old, had sought in vain to have it put on in a Broadway theater. It is now at the Booth Theater.

The Pulitzer Prizes, which were awarded for the 57th year and are officially announced by the trustees of Columbia University, were divided into three categories, journalism, letters and music.

There were 10 prizes in journalism; eight in letters, which included two prizes in the category of general nonfiction and one special citation, and one in music.

The prize for general nonfiction was shared by Frances FitzGerald and Dr. Robert Coles. Miss, FitzGerald wrote “Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam.” Dr. Coles was honored‐for Volumes 2 and 3 of “Children of Crisis,” a study of the Southern rural poor.

In addition, James Thomas Flexner was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize citation for “George Washington,” a four‐volume biography.

In a kind of vindication, W. A. Swanberg was awarded the prize in biography for “Luce and His Empire,” a work about Henry R. Luce, the founder of Time Inc.

Mr. Swanb'erg had been recommended for the 1962 prize in biography for “Citizen Hearst: his story of William Randolph Hearst, the publisher.

However, in a celebrated reversal of the decision by both the judges and the advisory board for the Pulitiier Prizes, the trustees of Columbia University declined to make the award.

They said that, under the terms of the award, it was to be made only for an idealistic biography, which “Citizen Hearst” was not. There was also speculation at the time that the trustees were reluctant to award a prize for a biography of Mr. Hearst, an old enemy of Joseph Pulitzer, the founder of The St. Louis Post‐Dispatch, who established the prizes.

The other culture awards were as follows:

Fiction: “The Optimist's Daughter” by Eudora Welty, whose first novel was published in 1941.

History: “People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of American Civilization” by Michael Kammen, a professor of history at Cornell University.

Poetry: “Up Country,” the, fourth collection of poems by Maxine Winokur Kumin, who teaches English at Tufts University.

Music: “String Quartet No. 3” by Elliott Carter, who also won a Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for his “Second String Quartet.”

The journalism prizes were the following:

General local reporting: The Chicago Tribune for its work in uncovering violations of the law in a primary election.

Special Local Reporting: The Sun Newspapers of Omaha for a special section in which they offered proof that Boys Town, the home for orphans, had a net worth of at least $209‐million.

National Reporting: Robert Boyd and Clark Hoyt of The Knight Newspapers for their disclosure that Senator Thomas F. Eagleton, who was briefly the Democratic Vice‐Presidential nominee, had a history of psychiatric treatment.

Editorial writing: Roger B. Linscott of The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass., who was cited for his general influence in community affairs.

Spot News Photography: Huynh Cong Ut of The Associated Press for his photograph “Terror of War,” which showed a 9‐year‐old Vietnamese girl fleeing from a napalm bombing.

Feature Photography: Brian Lanker of The Topeka Capital‐Journal for a sequence on the birth of a baby.

Criticism: Ronald Powers of The Chicago Sun‐Times, who writes a six‐day‐a‐week column pf radio and television criticism.

There was no award given for editorial cartoons. The trustees did not comment on why the cartoon award, which was last withheld in 1965, was not made this year.

Numerous newspapers in the past have won two Pulitzer Prizes in the same year. The last paper to do so before The Washington Post was Newsday of Long Island, which won prize in 1970 for public service, the same year its cartoonist, Thomas Darcy, also Won.

The Post's investigation into Watergate was conducted primarily by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Mr Bernstein, 129 years old, joined the Post in 1966. Mr. Woodward, 30, joined the staff in 1970.

Throughout much of its Watergate coverage, The Post had been sharply and repeatedly criticized by President Nixon's press secretary, Ronald L. Ziegler. He accused the paper and its investigative reports of “shabby journalism” and “a blatant effort at character assassination.”

Last Tuesday, the day after Mr. Nixon addressed the nation on television about Watergate, Mr. Ziegler publicly, apologized to The Post, Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein. Mr. Ziegler said he had been “overenthusiastic” and his crticisms had been “an overstatement.”

Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein, whose investigations uncovered some of the most dramatic features of the Watergate story, became partners almost by accident. They were first assigned to work together on June 17—the day of the break‐in—to check on the five suspects who had been caught.

In July, after the Democratic National Convention, they were assigned to work full‐time on Watergate, and eventually disclosed the existence of a Republican espionage network, a secret fund and links to high Administration officials.

When the board of adviiers for the Pulitzer Prizes met at Columbia on April 12 there was some discussion as to whether Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Woodward should be singled out for an individual prize.

The board, however, decided against this, apparently for the same reasons it declined to give Neil Sheehan of The Times prize in 1972 for his role in the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers.

The members of the board were said to believe that The Post itself should get the prize because the Watergate story involved a number of people on the editorial staff, among them Herbert A. Block, the cartoonist, and Roger Wilkins, an editorial writer.

There were about 500 entries for the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism, which consist of citations and awards of $1,000. The initial selectihs in the different categories were made by 50 newspaper editors, who submitted three to six nominations in each category to the Pulitzer advisory board.

The board then picked single winner in each category and sent it to the board of trustees. The trustees, who met yesterday just before the prizes were announced, can accept or reject the recommendations of the board but cannot submit recommendations of their own

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