A Pulitzer for PJ Media? The Case for Our ‘Every Single One’ Series
Last year, PJ Media published an eleven-article series titled “Every Single One”, the result of a year-long investigation of — and legal battle with — the Department of Justice.
Our correspondents — PJ Media Legal Editor J. Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky — discovered the Eric Holder DOJ had used an ideological litmus test when evaluating applicants for employment within the Civil Rights Division. The Civil Service Reform Act, a law dating to President Chester Arthur, prohibits federal hiring based on political affiliation. The act’s authors and supporters intended it as an assurance that all future federal hiring be merit-based.
Adams and von Spakovsky suspected that the new DOJ had chosen to disregard the Act as a matter of practice. PJ Media subsequently filed a Freedom of Information Act request to view the resumes of all new hires in the Civil Rights Division since the ascension of Eric Holder to attorney general.
One year and one lawsuit later, the DOJ finally complied. The “Every Single One” series published summaries of the resumes of all 113 new hires, and revealed that Adams’ and von Spakovsky’s assumptions of illicit hiring had been correct — to an astonishing degree.
Every single new hire possessed the same or similar political leanings.
We decided to submit the series for a Pulitzer because the Pulitzer Prize committee has previously awarded an investigation of the exact same topic.
In 2007, journalist Charlie Savage — then of the Boston Globe — won the National Reporting Pulitzer for his eight-article submission. One of the winning articles was titled “Civil Rights Hiring Shifted in Bush Era: Conservative leanings stressed”:
The Bush administration is quietly remaking the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights, according to job application materials obtained by the Globe.
The documents show that only 42 percent of the lawyers hired since 2003, after the administration changed the rules to give political appointees more influence in the hiring process, have civil rights experience. In the two years before the change, 77 percent of those who were hired had civil rights backgrounds.
…
The profile of the lawyers being hired has since changed dramatically, according to the resumes of successful applicants to the voting rights, employment litigation, and appellate sections. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Globe obtained the resumes among hundreds of pages of hiring data from 2001 to 2006.
Hires with traditional civil rights backgrounds — either civil rights litigators or members of civil rights groups — have plunged. Only 19 of the 45 lawyers hired since 2003 in those three sections were experienced in civil rights law, and of those, nine gained their experience either by defending employers against discrimination lawsuits or by fighting against race-conscious policies.
Meanwhile, conservative credentials have risen sharply. Since 2003 the three sections have hired 11 lawyers who said they were members of the conservative Federalist Society. Seven hires in the three sections are listed as members of the Republican National Lawyers Association, including two who volunteered for Bush-Cheney campaigns.
Well done.
The response will be quite telling.
Good luck. You deserve to win.
Meanwhile, sounds of crickets chirping.
And the percentage of members of the Pulitzer Prize committee with “the same or similar political leanings”is?
Yup…
Savages Pulitzer was the same as Obamas Nobel
Both were Inside Jobs.
Maybe Charlie will come by PJ and attempt to post something in the comments. Of course he tried to last year, and couldn’t figure out the mechanics of posting a comment. Don’t miss these PJ Media Charlie Savage themed reports:
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2011/12/18/how-the-new-york-times-and-charlie-savage-lie/
http://pjmedia.com/blog/bombshell-justice-department-only-selectively-complies-with-freedom-of-information-act-pjm-exclusive/
That’s their next exposé
Should win, nothing else comes close.
Just finished reading Injustice, too. Recommending it to everyone.
Here’s hoping you get it, the series was the best I’ve ever read on the subject.
Of course you do realize it will be spun as to make it proof that Obambi is making a difference by correcting the great wrong that was committed by Bush in hiring all those terrible conservatives with no civil rights experience.
Now, if you will excuse me for a moment, I have to go throw up after writing that BS!
I wouldn’t hold my breath (I’m sure the 2,000,000 truth seeking minions of Obama will do what they can to stop it).
Perhaps someone should do an investigation into the leftist slant of Pulitzer Prizes awarded? Deserving this award has no relation to getting it. I hope they prove me wrong!
i don’t know the rules of the Pulitzer, but i do remember michael yon was not considered several years back (about 2006, i believe) because internet was not considered press or something. have the rules changed or are you hoping to change them?
This lesson is learned by every decision maker at a young age. Over time, your decisions not only define your area of influence, they define your integrity. If you decide on two bodies of work, and pick the obviously weaker choice, you are defined. You define yourself. RJM has put the Pulitzer committee to the test. We will learn about their honesty and objectivity as we have learned about the DoJ Civil Rights Division.
Yes, PJ Media getting a Pulitzer would definitely rank right up there with Obama’s Peace Prize…awarded without merit nor justification.
Unlike the pampered and unproductive Obama, Adams and Spakovsky have done real research under legally adverse circumstances, and produced a report in depth, illuminating some corrosively illegal behavior by the Justice Department in its hirings. Would you like to explain how this report does not benefit all of the public? Or do you feel that corruption in government is laudable under the right party?
You are, of course, correct but please take notice that there are neither police cars nor public parks here at PJ Media. The pouting progressives need to poop somewhere.
Bravo PJM! This is great news, and will result in at least one win for honest journalism.
Either the Pulitzer will be awarded (the big win), or the committee in NOT making the award (the lesser win) will reveal itself as unworthy to comprehend investigative journalism at best, or viciously biased at worst.
Insufficiently – My vote is on “viciously biased”.
Sounds cool. If you lose, you can beat them up for ideological conformism. If you win you can publicly refuse to take the same award that they handed to Walter Duranty.
You guys do a lot of good work and I wish you the best, but, if you get one, so should Ann Althouse for her work on the Madison protests.
Some of the power law firms –such as Eric Holder’s Covington Burling, seem like embassies for various state security services. Study CB since, oh, the days it worked for the Alger Hiss defense. The KGB’s embassy in DC.
Good on Adams and PJM for shining some light on the zombie jamboree.
When Eric Holder smugly sits in front of a Congressional committee and starts pontificating about “my people” and berates Americans about being “cowards about race”, what more evidence does one need of this Administration’s divisive agenda and corrupt power grabs? End this regime in November!
Sorry, waste of time, you can’t win.
The NYT would win if they reported about Bush’s Justicce Dept. Dan Rather would have won if his fake-but-accurate Bush-AWOL memo was not debunked.
Adams, however, was investigating the Justice of the most brilliant, the most eloquent savior of MSM and all mankind. Oh, Adams must be racist too investigating a black, I mean African American, Attorney General, to discredit the black president,…
Sorry, but the Pulitzer is reserved for professional journalists, who understand that making waves is an abuse of their position. It’s not ‘making waves’ when Republicans are exposed because everyone already knows they’re dirty.
How many Pulitzers did Drudge win when he exposed Presidential perjury and obstruction of justice in the late 1990s? I bet PM gets at least as many.
It’s not about ‘professional’jourmalists vs bloggers. The problem is…the hubris involved in nominating oneself for any award or prize at all.
Of course, the ideologues on both sides of the political debate in America are filled with such hubris. The irony is that both sides claim to be so humble. They are only looking out for everyone else’s best interests, you see…or so we are constantly told.
The Pulitzer committee does not evaluate ALL the work out there; only those having been submitted for evaluation/consideration. This is true for all awards (from Oscars to industry-level awards).
It is not hubris that motivates everyone who submits their pieces for consideration. Consider this: if you were a home builder and were asked to build and show a home in an annual Street of Dreams-type promotion in your community, would you not leap at the chance to do so? Put your best work on display in an effort to show what you can do and be rewarded for it with thousands of walk-throughs over a few weeks, increased name recognition, and an almost guaranteed sale?
Of course you would; it’s called marketing!
It isn’t hubris for a boss to nominate his employees for an award. Of course PJM will bask in the reflected glow, but that is a good thing for all of us- our message gets a wider audience and the relatively dubious nature of the Savage award is thrown into sharper relief. Of course these are things that will militate against the Pulitzer committee giving the prize to people who just aren’t “sound”.
My question is not meant to reflect on the present work of PJM, but why on earth do you covet a Pullitzer and why should I trust a media organization that does? Shouldn’t some things just be left to the left and their progressive heroic dreamworld while the rest of us get on with the work of decentralized freedom?
Perhaps it’s not so much ‘coveting’ a Pulitzer as offering the committee a chance to celebrate diversity (don’t all correct-thinking progressives want that?) in its awards for committing actual journalism.
Also, an award to PJM would have an effect on the public, by conferring a star on its crown as a trusted source like the NYT or the Seattle Times – both of which have Pulitzers, whether for news or propaganda. Much of the public is positive about Pulitzer Prizes.
It is interesting that the Savage article referenced didn’t even demonstrate bias! 19 out of 45 doesn’t come close to showing bias [the pstat for those numbers comes in over 0.422, the 90% significance test would require a result under 0.10, 95% under 0.05]. Nice call by the ‘reality based’ community.
by left do you mean truth? not just some thing you made up and can’t prove to be a fact? that seems to be the difference between us is that
What are you talking about? Can you string a sentence together with a Subject Noun, Verb, and Direct Object with correct punctuation? Your post makes zero sense!
I think this campaign is a mistake, based on the mistaken premise that conservative media will get a fair shake in awards from MSM organizations like these.
PJ Media is all about changing the paradigm. It should be giving its own awards, or supporting some new and unbiased organization that could supplant the Pulitzers.
Asking for these schmucks’ approval cedes them way more authority than they still deserve.
The application is a fair tactic in smoking out the committee’s commitment to honest journalism. Should they not award to PJM, after its bona fides in researching the DOJ’s biased hirings, PJM can help change the paradigm as you suggest, by exposing the Pulitzer committee’s biased awards.
I liked this article.
Would it be amiss to study the number of political appointees during the Bush years and compare to Obama? Maybe I missed that somewhere.
Great work. Very interesting but expected of this corrupt DOJ. I’m seeing total contempt for the laws of this country. I think Eric Holder is guilty of treason. I just wish someone had the guts to charge him. We have so much evidence on this guy and the DOJ. It seems as if this DOJ is always in contempt of the law and/or congress. The arrogance is astonishing. I would be pleasantly surprised if Pulitzer even considers this, they are just too biased.
Don’t hold your breath, count your chickens, wait for the cows to come home….
Good luck with that. I suspect that since you’re conservative/”leaning” that it will be a cold day in hell before the Pulizer committee will give you one.
The writing is good, the story covered is timely and relevant,and it is based on facts, not fevered dreams.
You will not win.
That isn’t necessarily a bad outcome.
At least you wouldn’t have the ignominy of being awarded the same, empty prize as Walter Duranty.
If you do win, through some act of God here on earth, quietly respond that you have reconsidered your submission and that you cannot in good concience accept the Prize. You are, after all, known by the company you keep.
Could we have the names of those on that “Pulitzer Committee” published here…..so we can lobby them, as is the accepted process in so many cases?
I think you’re being naive.
Y’all have been uppity conservatives. The articles by themselves were enough, probably, to get your taxes audited for the next few years.
But this . . . this is just too brazen. At minimum, you can expect that your Social Security earnings history will be zeroed out. It’s very likely that your Drivers License records will be “adjusted.” If you own property, mysterious tax liens are almost certain.
Are any of your relatives employed by any governmental body? Call them and apologize now. It will be much more tense later, once they’ve lost their jobs and pensions, and you’ll probably get no chance to explain it all to them.
Whatever you do, for God’s sakes, do NOT tear any of those mattress tags off of your mattresses from this point and forward. If you have mattresses without tags, dump them somewhere tonight – very late, where no one will find them.
Our prayers are with you, but be realistic: if they do come after you, (and they will), we’ve never heard of you.
Any “intelligent” people only require the dissemination of the FACTS and the TRUTH, such as what you offer. The LEFTSTREAM MEDIA/DEMORAT/HOLLYWOOD COMPLEX RUNS THIS COUNTRY….RIGHT INTO THE GROUND I MIGHT ADD. THEY WOULD MUCH RATHER SPIN, LIE AND DECEIVE, THEN TELL YOU HOW TO THINK….TYPICAL COMMIE RE-EDUCATION. YOU FOLKS ARE GOD-SENT!!!
Obviously, I cannot see into the future, but let me make a prediction here. It may be looked at, then immediately discarded. If you are not in the left camp, your ideas and views will be considered as not worthy of consideration. It’s too bad, but that’s the way things are now.