Pulitzer Rules to Allow More Online Entries

NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer
AP Online
12-07-2005
Dateline: NEW YORK
Newspapers vying for a Pulitzer Prize, the top honor in American print journalism, can now include material published online to bolster their entries, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced Wednesday.

The new rules come as newspapers increasingly rely on their Web sites to disseminate, support and enhance their work as print circulation declines. The new guidelines will apply to the 2006 awards, which cover work in 2005.

"I think the Pulitzer competition now reflects a blend of print and online, which is what most newspapers are seeking to achieve these days," said Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzers.

The competition's "Public Service" category, considered the most prestigious, has since 1999 allowed an online presentation to be part of entries. That category will continue to accept various forms of online work, including streaming video, databases and timelines.

But the other 13 journalism categories will allow online content for the first time.

Only the categories of breaking news reporting and breaking news photography will allow entries that consist solely of online content. Entries of online material in other categories will be limited to written pieces, such as news stories or columns, and still images. Those entries still must include printed material.

Gissler declined to say whether the Pulitzers would ever include a category specifically for online journalism. But he said a Pulitzer committee will continue to monitor how news outlets use the Internet.

In a separate change, the Pulitzer competition guidelines for the feature writing category were altered. The category now will give "prime consideration to quality of writing, originality and concision." The previous feature writing guidelines gave "prime consideration to high literary quality and originality."

Asked if the board wants to see shorter feature stories, Gissler said: "We've tended to have longer submissions, and I think this is an attempt to make it clear that we're interested in a range of possibilities, in case anyone had the notion that the only case the Pulitzer Prizes were interested in were lengthy packages."

The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism cover a range of categories, from cartooning to international reporting.

The 2006 Pulitzer Prizes will be announced April 17.

___

On the Net: http://www.pulitzer.org

Copyright 2005, AP News All Rights Reserved