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Guardian and WaPo Receive Pulitzers For Snowden Coverage

Posted by Unknown on from the pulitzer-prize-board-added-to-terrorist-organization-list dept.

Late Yesterday, the Pulitzer Prize board announced (PDF) the 2014 Pulitzer Prize winners. The public service prize was awarded to the Guardian and the Washington Post. The Washington Post was given the award for its role in revealing widespread surveillance by the NSA, "...marked by authoritative and insightful reports that helped the public understand how the disclosures fit into the larger framework of national security," and the Guardian for sparking "...a debate about the relationship between the government and the public over issues of security and privacy." Snowden released a statement praising the Pulitzer board: "Today's decision is a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognizes was work of vital public importance. This decision reminds us that what no individual conscience can change, a free press can. "

13 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Good by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Snowden deserves a Nobel prize too. And Clapper and the other NSA leaders deserve prison time.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:Good by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, and Clapper and the NSA leadership probably aren't going to get prison time either. But they still deserve it.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    2. Re:Good by zippthorne · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, it's called the peace prize, not the freedom prize or the opposed oppression prize.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    3. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      source, please?

      Or, as usual, are you just talking out your ass?

      Most of the stuff Snowden has released concerns NSA spying on American citizens, not other countries. The few cases released that concerned spying on leaders of other countries were the US's own allies, not our foes. Just how in the hell is Putin gonna use that to strengthen their intelligence apparatus? Russia has made no secret of the fact that they routinely do this while America, of course, has routinely denied ever doing it.

      As for who deserves prosecution... you never mentioned the ones who setup and authorized the NSA surveillance program on American citizens in the first place. They should be taken out and shot at dawn. Instead, they are getting richer and fatter on their Halliburton "thank yous".

    4. Re:Good by 14erCleaner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Snowden deserves a Nobel prize too.

      Or at least a mention in the Pulitzer announcement. The way the announcement phrased it, you'd think the journalists dug out this information on their own, rather than having it dumped in their laps.

      --
      Have you read my blog lately?
  2. Congratulations are in order. by rmdingler · · Score: 2, Insightful
    In a World where personal freedoms are all too routinely stricken from existence without constitutional testing,

    it is reassuring that the Press remains a thorn in the side of those who would oppress.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Congratulations are in order. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Then why haven't they gone after the man who campaigned to stop all of this, but has done nothing?

      You might remember him, Barak Obama(D).

    2. Re:Congratulations are in order. by cold+fjord · · Score: 1, Insightful

      ... it is reassuring that the Press remains a thorn in the side of those who would oppress.

      Unfortunately the Press is all too often no longer "equal opportunity bastards," they are far too partial to one side of the argument.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    3. Re:Congratulations are in order. by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What have you done to make it more painful? Do you even vote? How about writing some letters? Or giving money to a candidate?

      In the end it's simple. Apathy is the ultimate enemy of freedom.

  3. it still amazes and saddens me... by Connie_Lingus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...that almost everyone I speak to in real life thinks Snowden is a criminal.

    he embodies everything people "say" they value in a democracy, yet they want to put him in jail and throw away the key because, basically, he embarrassed some allegedly criminal senior government officials.

    clueless.

    --
    never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
    1. Re:it still amazes and saddens me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ... and were doing a lot of good.

      Examples?

      Remember just before Snowden happened, the US were routinely accusing the Chinese and the Russians of exactly the kind of thing, as it turned out, they were themselves doing. If those things are all legal and good, why the fuss?

    2. Re:it still amazes and saddens me... by SpankiMonki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There many international laws prohibiting spying. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations certainly applies - specifically, Articles 22, 24, and 27.

  4. That's nice by koan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What did Snowden get?

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."