Getting more credit than it deserves

Thanks, Pulitzer. Thanks a whole bunch. Now, I’m seriously worried.

Not the nail-chewing, hand-wringing, garment-rending kind of worry, but the one emblematic of watching a lit match burn too close to my fingers. Because I believe that soon, something seriously bad is going to happen.

And it’s all because you bestowed the award for national reporting on The Huffington Post, America’s aggregator-general and chronic cut-and-paste punchline.

On Monday, the Pulitzer committee honored military correspondent David Wood’s 10-part series on the long-term affects of war on our wounded soldiers and their families. The heart-wrenching “Beyond the Battlefield” series comprised eight months of research and interviews of military men and women who, Wood said, “wanted to tell their story because they view their wounds as medals of honor, symbols of their sacrifice.”

The series and its award have lifted the 7-year-old Huffington Post into the pantheon of “serious” news publications, mostly print-based, that have for years looked down on their online brethren as ugly stepchildren — “HuffPost” in particular. That’s because since going live in 2005, the site has garnered more attention for what it didn’t do journalistically than what it did.

HuffPost has been called a safe harbor for pseudoscience apologists, a slap-dash content mill unaccustomed to crediting original source work, and a salary-free sweatshop offering false promises of credibility to aspiring bloggers seeking national attention.

Even its founder Arianna Huffington, perhaps the most powerful woman online today, has been hit with plagiarism charges regarding two books she wrote in the 1980s, with one claim settled out of court and the other not prosecuted.

Assorted running jokes imply that HuffPost is where journalists go to see how their stories were rewritten, and where business editors go to read the Wall Street Journal without paying for it. A gag on “Saturday Night Live” featuring an Arianna Huffington lookalike has her claiming HuffPost copied content directly from The New York Times on coverage of Prop 8, with knowing laughter instead of shock or dismay following the punchline.

And this is why I’m worried — not that HuffPost is too much of a punchline to warrant Pulitzer’s attention, but that the prize ascribes more credibility to HuffPost than it deserves.

Though the award went to one reporter and one story series, the fact that Pulitzer’s prizes have such distinguished reputations brings everyone involved to share in the honor. This is why, at nearly every publication that has won a prize, the award is displayed prominently as representative of the entire publication, not just one or more diligent reporters.

We see it elsewhere, too. When the Super Bowl trophy is handed out at the end of the big game, every player gets the chance to touch it, kiss it, hold it. One player may be the MVP, but winning the Lombardi Trophy is a team effort, so everyone shares a stake in the reward. So it goes at Pulitzer-winning publications.

The award also instills tacit vindication for the way newspapers go about their business. Not only the result, but also the process is cherished, and thus  journalism conferences often feature Pulitzer winners giving presentations on “How I did it,” or “How I won it,” or “What we did to get it.” These presentations are almost always the best-attended at these conferences.

But the impact goes deeper. The Pulitzer also is taken by winning publications as tangential proof that the psychology inside the operation is award-winning as well — that the way a publication conducts its internal affairs sets the table for Pulitzer’s praise. Thus, prize-winning operations see the Pulitzer as not just a reward for individual work well done, but also for the operational state of mind behind that work.

And thus, Arianna Huffington can now promote her company’s Pulitzer win as justification for all the questionable behavior either known to be going on or alleged to be going on inside her shop. After all, she’s bound to say with that award held up for all to see, isn’t this what it’s all about?

I’d like to think that hunk of metal has more significance. I’d like to think the ultimate symbol of responsible, ethical journalism is intangible, understated, yet prominent enough in the minds of American citizens that they choose to turn their attention to it every day, whether in paper or digital form.

A good, solid reputation in journalism is not something acquired from routinely borrowing or reinventing other’s work without giving due credit. With the attention of the journalism community squarely on her, Arianna Huffington has the chance now to change her publication’s ways and drive that point home. The alternative is for HuffPost to continue doing as it always has: serve as a punchline that gives serious journalism a black eye.