Franz Kafka’s short story, “A Hunger Artist,” is about an entertainer who makes his living by demonstrating his unusual ability to starve himself. Eventually, public interest wanes but the man continues, driven by pride in his craft, memories of previous fame and, of course, by madness. In the “Semiotics of Hunger,” Efraim Sicher wrote:
Kafka’s story works beautifully in its cruel paradoxical logic, yet it leaves us without a solution, not necessarily because there isn’t one, but because in the world in which the hunger artist’s performance is no longer visible, the performance can only work if we understand why it is impossible.
I was thinking about Kafka’s story when I read about this year’s Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism. I applaud the work and congratulate the winners, but think the prizes themselves have become marginalized.
When I was Managing Editor of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, we were fortunate enough to win the Pulitzer for coverage of a devastating local flood. That prize was one of the best experiences of my professional life and helped me get a promotion to the Miami Herald. I was in newsrooms for other Pulitzers in Detroit and Miami, and I twice got to participate as a panelist in the Pulitzer judging process at Columbia University, when I was publisher in State College.
So my feelings don’t stem from bitterness. I just think maybe time has passed for Pulitzers that focus only on newspapers and their web sites. It’s time for prizes that disregard platform and focus just on outstanding journalism, in whatever form it appears.
