NATIONAL ENQUIRER OPENS A

PANDORA’S BOX AT THE PULITZER PRIZES 

You  may laugh when hearing that the National Enquirer, the scandal sheet found in grocery stores throughout the country, has submitted its application for a Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s most revered award. Word has it that their action has shaken some timbers at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, where the prize office is based. 

Yes, much of their coverage is an anathema to any self-respecting journalist. Doctored photos, biased and inaccurate stories, even blatant lies, almost too preposterous to believe. 

But this time they beat the national press at its own game, covering a top candidate for the Presidential nomination, John Edwards. And the only thing trashy about that exclusive newsbeat was the man they wrote about and what he did. 

The Enquirer broke the news of Rielle Hunter’s pregnancy and worse yet, the use of campaign donations as hush money.  Smelling a story in a small comment by the Huffington Post, the tabloid’s “bird dogs” went to work and within a month had confirmed publicly what the Huffington article first sensed, but apparently feared to state.  

As painful as it may be in the pristine halls of the Journalism School, one has to “give the devil his due” if the awards are to continue to have real meaning. Top notch digging and reporting of a disgrace at such a high level in our political structure deserves recognition.

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