Walking out on the Walkley awards won’t change history

The Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism.

Forty-five years ago this week I walked into Columbia University’s graduate school of journalism in New York, almost unbelieving that I had made it into one of the most prestigious journalism schools in the world.

Competition for journalism masters’ programs was intense in the late 1970s because of the success of two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in breaking a news story that became known as Watergate and led to the downfall of US president Richard Nixon. In 1973 The Washington Post was awarded a Pulitzer prize on the strength of Woodward and Bernstein’s investigative reporting and Columbia University, the home of the biggest journalism prize in the world, was inundated with applications.

As I entered the grand surroundings of the Ivy League school the presence of Joseph Pulitzer permeated the buildings, with rooms named for him and his New York World newspaper. This was not surprising, given the famous newspaper owner and editor had supplied the $US2m to not only found the school, which began in 1912, but also the eponymous journalism prize that began in 1917.

Columbia journalism school still controls the Pulitzers, through an independent board and an advisory council, and announces the prestigious prizes each spring. The board has an official policy that it does not publicly enter into debate about its decisions and deliberations, nor does it publicly defend those decisions when there is, not uncommonly, controversy about the winners.

American publisher and editor Joseph Pulitzer Jnr.

Neither does it apologise for where its sponsorship came from, in an apposite example of leadership that the leaders of the Walkley Awards could do well to emulate. The Walkley Awards face a boycott from cartoonists concerned about climate change and an article in The Sydney Morning Herald written 62 years ago by William Walkley, founder of the Ampol petroleum company and sponsor of the awards that bear his name.

The Pulitzers, like the Walkleys, have developed a life of their own and have become a symbol of trust in journalism. What’s more, as with the Walkleys, entry is voluntary. Pulitzer was committed to establishing journalism studies to embed ethical and methodical reporting practices into newspapers and ensured his bequest would be flexible as technology and times changed.

In 1978 the history of (US) journalism course leaned heavily on the impact of the American civil war on journalism, but not so much on the Spanish-American War of 1898. The Spanish-American war was part of the creation of the original “fake news”, with the biggest New York newspapers participating in circulation wars that founded “yellow journalism” – the vilest epithet to be applied to newspapers because it involved sensationalism, stunts, gross exaggeration, falsehoods and graphic illustrations as well as jingoistic and bellicose editorials that were attributed to contributing to the declaration of war.

The patriarchs of this yellow journalism – so-called because of a bidding war over a circulation-boosting cartoonist who drew a popular strip known as The Yellow Kid – were the much maligned William Randolph Hearst, owner-editor of the New York Journal, and none other than the now revered Pulitzer.

For two years the newspaper barons slugged it out to see who would be top dog. Pulitzer, although he lost his yellow cartoon, won the circulation war after reviving the ailing World with populist stunts, campaigns, puzzles and competitions while pushing for war with Spain.

Now, Columbia University does not shout about yellow journalism from its green-coppered rooftops but neither does it, nor does the Pulitzer prize board, deny or cancel the historical fact.

Pulitzer’s role in yellow journalism and seeking to make a commercial success out of the failing World, which he did and had already done with the St Louis Post-Dispatch, is acknowledged without apology. For more than 100 years Columbia and the Pulitzer board have taken a mature attitude to newspaper history and recognised Pulitzer’s legacy. The ability of the prize to develop a prestige, independence and critical mass of its own outweighs past imperfections and in no way inculpates participants or recipients.

The official biography states: “When the Cubans rebelled against Spanish rule, Pulitzer and Hearst sought to outdo each other in whipping up outrage against the Spanish. Both called for war against Spain after the US battleship Maine mysteriously blew up and sank in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. Congress reacted to the outcry with a war resolution. After the four-month war, Pulitzer withdrew from what had become known as ‘yellow journalism’.”

No one suggests Woodward and Bernstein – or John F. Kennedy for that matter – were tainted with “yellow journalism” by their Pulitzer recognition because the original benefactor, whose career included much more crusading and anti-corruption journalism than cartoon campaigning for war, was a founding father of fake news in the 19th century.

As that wise old owl of the Canberra press gallery and winner of numerous Walkley awards Laurie Oakes observed in defence of the Walkley Awards, no one is suggesting Pulitzer’s name should be taken off the award because of his involvement in yellow journalism.

“Journalism in Australia is already in trouble in terms of losing public trust, and this is likely to make that worse,” Oakes said, in reference to the campaign to change the Walkley Awards because of the connection with Ampol and fossil fuel.

If it’s good enough for Pulitzer it should be good enough for Walkley.