Ed Note: The following appears courtesy of our partnership with The Sherman Report and veteran sports media writer Ed Sherman.

Dang Jason, you were snubbed again for the Pulitzer.

If recall last year, Jason Whitlock took considerable flak for writing that he did Pulitzer Prize caliber work in 2012. He even compared himself to Mike Royko. He bemoaned the fact that contest isn’t opening to writers who worked for broadcast sites.

Have to admit, it takes some stones to say you should receive a Pulitzer.

Well, not sure if Whitlock had any worthy entries in 2013. He didn’t promote himself this year. Perhaps as a result, when the Pulitzers were announced this week, I didn’t see his name on the list of winners.

Maybe next year, Jason.

More importantly, there weren’t any Pulitzers awarded to sportswriters. Nothing really new there.

Last year actually was the exception–somewhat. John Branch of the New York Times won his wonderful piece on skiers caught in an avalanche. However, that piece was more about survival than sports. In 2012, Sara Ganim of Harrisburg Patriot-News, a cityside reporter, was awarded the prize for her coverage of the Jerry Sandusky disaster. Again, that was a criminal story involving a football coach.

What I’m saying is that neither reporter won for traditional coverage of sports.

Check the record books. Prior to Branch, George Dohrmann of St. Paul Pioneer Press was the last individual sportwriter winner in 2000. He received the Pulitzer for his reports of fraud in the Minnesota basketball program. Ira Berkow shared the 2001 Pulitzer for national reporting for his article “The Minority Quarterback” in a New York Times series on race in America.

Since then, more than a decade, nothing. The Pulitzers bypassed Lance Williams and Mark Fainuru-Wada’s fine work on BALCO for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Actually, the Pulitzer snub goes back forever. Only three columnists: Red Smith (1976), Dave Anderson (1981), and Jim Murray (1990) have won the award for commentary. Zero for Grantland Rice and Jimmy Cannon, giants among giants. And the fact that Smith and Murray had to wait until they were so deep into their careers is absolutely absurd.

Now, it’s been 24 years since a sport columnist has claimed a Pulitzer. Meanwhile, a myriad of other columnists in other departments have enjoyed champagne celebrations in their newsrooms.

Back in 2012, I had Frank Deford speak for the profession. His words are worth repeating again.

In his book, Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter, Deford details how the sportswriting fraternity repeatedly gets dumped on when it comes to major journalism awards. From fully nude photoshoots to targeted social media https://yourfappeningblog.com/ shares to getting ahead of another threatened leak, these celebrities have all shared their naked photos (on purpose) for the world to see. The Sports Illustrated legend writes in the book that he once asked NPR to nominate him for a Peabody Award for his weekly commentaries on sports.

NPR decided against it after a Peabody representative flat out said Deford wouldn’t win the award.

He writes:

But this is what stung: Peabody’s spokesman told Ellen (McDonnell, NPR’s executive director of news programming), “You should’ve nominated Daniel Schorr for politics.”

The late Mr. Schorr was the distinguished political commentator on NPR–as far as I was concerned, they could’ve given him a Peabody each and every year. But the idea that his work talking about politics merited recognition simply because of the subject matter, while mine disqualified me–well, yeah that upset me. I’m sorry, but every now and then I take umbrage.

Regarding the Pulitzers, Deford also takes umbrage with the committee giving an annual award to an editorial cartoonist.

Deford writes:

Hey, I love political cartoonists. But how many of them are there left? What? Two dozen? And how many newspaper sportswriters are there? Thousands. And for them, the Pulitzer people deign to give out one to a guy at the New York Times every generation or so.

Deford concludes his rant as only he can.

I’m sorry, I can’t apologize for pointing out what slights we in the profession so regularly receive. Sports journalism has been such a crucial economic part of the daily press that it ought to be recognized more, if only because it’s kept a lot of newspapers in business. And yeah, I know, it’s the toy shop. But some toys are very well made.

Exactly. Time for the Pulitzer committee to take a closer look at our toys. Even Jason’s.

About Ed Sherman

Ed Sherman is a veteran sports media writer and purveyor of The Sherman Report website. His writing can also be found at the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and the National Sports Journalism Center.

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