Watered-Down Pulitzers?

The Atlanta Constitution, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for exposing municipal graft, last week teed off on the Pulitzer-Prize committee for this year's awards. With a hard look at the six 1950 awards for international reporting and the two for meritorious public service by newspapers (TIME, May 14), Editor Ralph McGill wrote: ". . . There comes the disquieting feeling that the Pulitzer awards are, in some degree, at least, annually coming to have less & less meaning . .

"In [some] fields the committee followed the line of least resistance by splitting up the prizes into many sections. Certainly all of those so honored did well and merit honor . . . But, surely, someone must have done the best job . . . We respectfully submit that the Pulitzer awards are being too often watered down and are losing meaning and prestige. Let's have the winners, and not a lot of artificially conceived dead heats."

There were plenty of signs that the Constitution was right. Many U.S. newsmen had reacted to the 1950 awards with a "ho-hum." One exception was John S. Knight's Chicago Daily News. "It was a great year for distinguished work in the newspaper field," glowed the News. But the News had special reason to glow: the committee (with Committeeman Knight not voting) had handed out two awards to News correspondents and one to Knight's Miami Herald.

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