Live data from Hacker News

A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class

cjr.org

41–50 of 108 posts

Re: A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class

#41

That is both super amazing and uniquely hard to imagine experiencing. It has to be surreal, in a journalism class, learning you've won Journalism's highest honor. I thought it also interesting that the students were more concerned that they would get in trouble for using a phone in class than with the import of the event. I don't think she will have much difficulty finding a job after she graduates with that on her r…

I guess the reason that this is possible in a field like journalism is because it's no theory-light in comparison to a theory-heavy discipline like CS. The extreme of theory-lightness would be something like swimming where Michael Phelps can break a world record at 15.

Re: A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class

#42

Journalism - real journalism, not blogging - matters. I've been thinking of buying a newspaper subscription again because I feel that even though newspapers typically lag 24 hours or so behind what you can read online someone needs to keep these people employed so they can do there very necessary jobs. I don't think it is possible to have anything resembling a democracy in the modern age without a free press.

The problem is that most newspaper are mostly total crap and a good article once in a while.

There would need to be some sort of model where you pay regularly to keep a whole team of people employed.

Re: A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class

#44
post #5

Much of the credit goes to The Cincinnati Enquirer for having the ethics to include interns on the byline. As they should, but not everyone would do so.

Honestly why should they? The Interns did exactly what they were told, the went and jotted down details. Is that Pulitzer Prize worthy work? Does the helper who whipes Einstein’s blackboard during the break deserve partial credit for what he put on it? I get that it’s a fun story but it honestly just seems redicules.

> Does the helper who whipes Einstein’s blackboard during the break deserve partial credit for what he put on it?

If the helper knows what to wipe off and what to leave up for when Einstein comes back, then I'd say yes. That's a more fitting analogy in this case.

Re: A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class

#45
post #5

Much of the credit goes to The Cincinnati Enquirer for having the ethics to include interns on the byline. As they should, but not everyone would do so.

Agreed. New Zealand’s semi national paper prints unattributed reddit comments on a regular basis. It’s grim.

Da fuck? What am I spending all that time on reddit for then?

But seriously, I am actually an award winning writer (and it's not even my profession, it's just a hobby) and I do comment on reddit a lot... they're stealing comments without attribution? Ethics aside, that's just terrible journalism to say the least.

Re: A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class

#46
post #43

Interestingly it is very difficult to figure out what the story she reported on is about given all the hoopla around a Latina winning the Pulitzer.

As long as Filipinas are Latinas, you're correct.

https://www.townandcountry.ph/people/inspiration/mariel-padi...

Re: A journalism student who found out she won a Pulitzer in class

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of reporting is becoming an endangered species. It requires a lot of man-hours, and isn't as profitable as the minimal effort required to regurgitate whatever the latest sensational scandal is.

I love how even a story about excellent journalism can be turned into an insult of the profession at large. As far as I can tell, there is an avalanche (that’s a reference) of excellent, deeply reported stories, making good use of technology, on important subjects both titilating and not. Just go through the other award winners, or the webby award nominees in the relevant categories.

Maybe it's just me but I didn't read the comment that way. I'm sure everyone in the business would prefer to do that kind of deep reporting, but the economy of the business just doesn't reward that. It's a real problem but I don't think anyone is blaming the journalists. If anything, the ones to blame are the people reading the scandalous stories.

I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm increasingly good at ignoring click-bait links.

EDIT: fixed a critical typo

Post reply on HN