I'm Thinking It's Too Bad the Des Moines Register Isn't Owned By Sam Zell. Neither Of Them Can Identify With Journalism's Pulitzer Prizes These Days

An empty car drove up to a tape recorder the other day, and Sam Zell got out.

Zell [otherwise known as Mr. Happiness, and pictured at the left] owns the Tribune Co., parent company of the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field, a bunch of newspapers [one of which is the Chicago Tribune] and probably a gas station.

He was being interviewed by Portfolio.com, and got on the subject of Pulitzer Prizes, which have been awarded since the Civil War -- or maybe the French & Indian War -- to newspapers and people who work for newspapers for outstanding work.

I was reading on Jim Romenesko's Poynter journalism site that Zell doesn't think much of Pulitzers.

That puts him in the same category as a guy I know who used to work at the Des Moines Register.

That guy was a very good newspaper reporter and editor. But he'd get irritated because of the way his bosses worked themselves into a frenzy whenever the Pulitzers were about to be awarded.

So the guy used Pulitzer Day as a vacation day. He stayed home so he didn't have to watch people jacking off whenever the winners were announced.

Now, here's what Zell said about Pulitzers:

"I haven't figured out how to cash in a Pulitzer Prize....There was a day when a newspaper put 'Winner of Pulitzer Prize' on the front page, and people flocked to read the Pulitzer Prize story. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that that’s the case today. But I also think that there are scale issues. I think if the goal is a Pulitzer, it's in the wrong place. In other words, we're not in the business of, in effect, underwriting writers for the future. We're a business that, in effect, has a bottom line. So as far as we're concerned, I think Pulitzers are terrific, but Pulitzers should be the cream on the top of the coffee. They shouldn't be the grounds."

That said, I think Zell would be the perfect owner of the Register, a paper that used to win lots of Pulitzers but hasn't been in the winners' circle since Jane Schorer Meisner grabbed the one for public service 17 years ago.

Things have gotten so lean in the Register newsroom when it comes to Pulitzers that the bosses have begun making a big deal out of it whenever a reporter becomes a finalist.

Pretty sad, if you ask me.

Other Pulitzers won by the Register were these:

Dave Peterson, Photography, 1987
Tom Knudson, National Reporting, 1985
James Risser, National Reporting, 1979
James Risser, National Reporting, 1976
Nick Kotz, National Reporting, 1968
Frank Miller, Cartoons, 1963
Clark Mollenhoff, National Reporting, 1958
Lauren Soth, Editorials, 1956
Richard Wilson, National Reporting, 1954
John Robinson and Don Ultang, Photography, 1952
Forrest Seymour, Editorials, 1943
J.N. (Ding) Darling, Cartoons, 1943
W.W. Waymack, Editorials, 1938
J.N. (Ding) Darling, Cartoons, 1924

My congratulations to all of them -- especially to Ding Darling.

Anyone who has to go through life being called Ding deserves lots of congratulations.

Printing that list gives me an excuse to put the two Pulitzer-winning cartoons drawn by Darling in this column.

The one at the top earned Darling the prize in 1924. It was titled "In [the] Good Old U.S.A." and reflected Darling's values. It tells of an orphan becoming one of the world's greatest mining engineers and economists, of the son of a plasterer becoming a great neurologist and a printer's apprentice becoming the president.

At the right is the cartoon, titled, "What a Place for Paper Waste Salvage." It appeared Sept. 14, 1942 and won Darling his second Pulitzer. It illustrates the large amount of paperwork in Washington D.C. It's said that Darling admitted he had to look up this cartoon when it was nominated for the award, and he questioned the panel members' judgement for selecting it.