We need to just pause for a moment and reflect: a blog has won the Pulitzer prize. Somewhere Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame, who just cast aspersions on journalism and the web) is squirming in his boots.
The prize is for David Wood’s 10-part series on wounded veterans and their families: Beyond the Battlefield, and it’s a validation that serious, old-fashioned, long-form, deeply researched journalism can happen via the web. Massive kudos to Wood, and equally massive kudos to the Pulitzer organization, which is putting a nail in the coffin (I hope) of those who say that bloggers are not journalists.
The only negative: it was the Huffington Post that won.
This series was excellent, but in the blogosphere, HuffPo is known more for semi-creative rewrites of other people’s posts (with grudging and tiny attribution links), and sensationalized linkbait. In other words, not exactly the poster child for sober online journalism. Ahh well, you can’t have it all.
This is the first, but it won’t be the last. Serious journalism is moving to electronic-only media. It’s just a matter of time until it will be unusual in the extreme to award a Pulitzer to a paper production.