MORE PULITZERS: Howie Kurtz has an excellent column today on journalism's most prestigious awards. He points out the objections that I have to the prizes: that only three or four newspapers seem to be allowed to win them year in and year out:

This is to take nothing away from the New York Times, which geared up its global news machine and did a fabulous job under its new editor, Howell Raines. But if one big, rich paper wins half the prizes – and four big, rich papers win just about everything – then are the Pulitzers getting more like baseball, where smaller clubs can no longer compete? Usually there are a couple of prizes for a Vermont editorial writer or a North Dakota newsroom covering a flood, just for geopolitical balance. Yes, in a year when Sept. 11 dominated the prizes, it helped to have big staffs, lots of dough and plenty of foreign bureaus. But if this is the trend of the future, maybe the Pulitzers should follow the National Magazine Awards and have different prizes for publications in different circulation categories. Otherwise it may be viewed especially by smaller and mid-sized papers – as an eastern elitist exercise.