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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. "

19 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 Travis+Mansbridge · · Score: 2

      Assange merely set up a website allowing people to leak any information anonymously, regardless of the impact, without having to face the consequences. Snowden took measured, deliberate action, releasing information specifically related to our civil liberties, even allowing time for those responsible to come forward before continuing to release information. How does the Collateral Damage video or the multitude of diplomatic cables released over wikileaks compare to just one of Snowden's many revelations?

    4. 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".

    5. 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.

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      Have you read my blog lately?
    6. Re:Good by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

      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.

      This is particularly true in the case of The Washington Post. IIRC, Snowden provided all the raw info, Greenwald at The Guardian did all the journalistic legwork. And The Washington Post was just brought in at the last minutes and handed everything in finished form just to lend some U.S. credibility to the story. The Post's entire contribution was to basically say "Yeah, okay thanks, we'll publish it too." It's like giving a Pulitzer to a paper who just picked up the AP story and published it unaltered.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    7. Re:Good by Sique · · Score: 2
      And you expect the media to be able to correctly asses the abilities and the inner workings of a secret agency in a foreign country? And not just blindly speculating what could have happened? Does the media read the press releases of the KGB, where the KGB announces his new spy programs?

      If there are any new tactics at the KGB and the chinese Zhong Chan Er Bu, they surely will not tell the papers you are reading. And if any american intelligence agency detects new tactics of foreign spy agencies, they won't put out a press release either. So we have wild guesses in the news papers you read, and nothing else.

      What we have is the former head of the NSA excusing before Germany for completely misunderstanding the german sensibilities when it comes to complete surveillance of everyone. We have about every intelligence agency running to their respective government to demand more money, and we have the intelligence agencies of Brazil and Germany begging for pardon for being that inept.

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      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  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 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. Re:Congratulations are in order. by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They've gone after him -- for everything but actual offenses to the Constitution.

      Benghazi, birth certificates, communism -- it's not his fault the alleged opposition party has bad aim.

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
  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: 3, Interesting

      He *is* a criminal. He is still right though.

      http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/criminal

      This is going to be tough but George Washington is considered a criminal too and Benedict Arnold is considered a patriot, in England. Because in that country under their laws they are.

      Most people still believe in the fairness of our justice system. They probably do not realize the gov would make an example of him. Until there are a few hollywood style movies making him look like a super hero. Most people will side against him.

    2. 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?

    3. Re:it still amazes and saddens me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Don't bother trying to explain "rule of law" to an apologist.

    4. Re:it still amazes and saddens me... by Arker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Snowden actually revealed nothing publicly. All those documents were entrusted to journalists. It's the WaPo, the Guardian, the NYT and so forth that decide which ones to publish and when, not him.

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      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    5. 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?

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