Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

And looking at this year's P-Ulitzer Prizes what strikes us is how the hacks now generally avoid giving awards to stories that might cause political offense -- certainly not the way it was in the Seventies, when America's Clark Kents stopped a war and ditched a president! This makes us wonder how useful even the best reporting is, and all that lobbying for the medallions further says this reporting may either not be the best, or it's specially formulated to win prizes, and never gets followed up. We've said that before but we must say it again.

And with the arts prizes we haven't heard of most of the winners as usual except the committee did give an award to a downer musical with a tiny cult following, and it further gave a "citation" to someone who died fifty years ago, evidently unconcerned George Gershwin never got HIS P-Ulitzer.

The Board, chaired by Anders Gyllenhaal, executive editor of the Miami Herald, made the award after a confidential survey of experts in popular music. [Expert emphasis added]

TRANSLATION: Next year...THE BOSS -- or maybe ARTHUR PENN.

P. S. We're not knocking Hank Williams -- he was a great songwriter and singer -- but isn't this a white flag in the face of the recorded...SOUND biz, not to mention masterWUHKS like NEXT TO NORMAL?

P. P. S. Mr. McNulty's ticked because The Board ignored "the new guard of American playwriting" -- meaning plays whose audiences you can count on the fingers of no hands.

It was fortuitous that Bill Clinton and his family attended "Next to Normal" just prior to its winning the prize.

Fortuitous?

(Mr. McNulty's diatribe via the usual Romy)