Alternative Pulitzer (expose of Oregon ex-gov babysitter cover-up)

[ima_sinnic]

Alternative Pulitzer

By G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet. Posted April 7, 2005.

The announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes usually provoke yawns -- or even sneers -- from media critics. The biggest of the American journalism prizes, the Pulitzers annually ratify conventional wisdom with overwhelmingly safe selections. Prizes are often given to the pooh-bahs from the top daily newspapers, allowing them to burnish their resumes and giving their employers free rein to promote the notion, however committed they are to profit, that they also serve the public good.

And that's largely what happened earlier this week, when the Pulitzer board announced this year's winners. The usual suspects -- the L.A Times, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal -- were named, with one exception. For only the fifth time in the history of the prizes, an alternative weekly was named a winner. The paper, Willamette Week, in Portland, Ore., won the investigative reporting category for an astonishing series of reports on a former governor's long cover-up of sexual misconduct with a teenage girl.

The Willamette Week's report on former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, written by Nigel Jaquiss, was explosive. Goldschmidt, until the story broke, was considered the most powerful man in the state. Even more astonishing than Goldschmidt's misbehaviors was the cover-up. In a separate article, published last December, Jaquiss describes a tight-knit group of elite Oregonians who knew enough about Goldschmidt's problem to have done something about it. But they didn't.

As one person told the reporter, you could argue that he had an ethical responsibility to act against Goldschmidt but other people had an even greater responsibility to act and didn't, so why should he? . . .

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21694/

the Willamette Week's report from 5/12/04: http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=5091

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fabulous! let the philandering cover-up abusers of power be exposed!!