Darnella Frazier is a brave young woman and 100% deserved to win her Pulitzer. She earned a Special Citation Pulitzer for her work covering the Death of George Floyd. I have no argument with the prize that she earned.
The 2 biggest stories of 2020 in America were the Death of George Floyd and the Spread of Covid 19. I don't think anyone would argue about that and the Pulitzer Prizes were given under the shadow of both stories.
I specifically entered the Commentary Section of the Pulitzers and you know who should have won? Me.
I am not a braggart. My angle from the beginning of the Covid 19 outbreak was consistent. The governments of China and the United States are lying to us (albeit in different ways), the American Press is pre-occupied with turning a virus political, and because 99% of the Americans who get Covid will live, a lot of Americans simply don't care about their neighbors.
Now when I submitted my articles, I had 9 listed, but could only submit 7 in the chosen category. Because it was a last second cut, and I didn't write down the 2 I sliced off at the submission deadline. These are the 7 that I believe I submitted.
#1 January 25, 2020: Impeachment (Part II) -or- We're All Going to Die Anyways
Link: https://www.beaconofspeech.com/post/2020/01/25/impeachment-part-ii-or-were-all-going-to-die-anyways
#2 April 19, 2020: Overwhelmed
#3 May 5, 2020 Disinformation
#4 May 28, 2020 Apparently, We Are NOT in this Together
#5 July 16,2020 The Covid 19 War
#6 November 23, 2020 You're Going to Get What You Deserve (Remix)
#7 December 27, 2020 National Emergency Day 291
Who did win? Michael Paul Williams of the Richmond (Va). Times Dispatch. "For penetrating and historically insightful columns that guided Richmond, a former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city's monuments to white supremacy." - Pulitzer
Runner Up #1? Melinda Henneberger of the Kansas City Star
Topic: Systemic Racism
Runner Up #2? Roy Johnson of the Alabama Media Group
I am not going to sit here and say my overall writing is better than all 3 of the decorated writers above, it's not. I still write too much about sports and classic rock, but I will tell you that I was the only writer who took a subject then reported what I saw. A subject that affected all Americans. The 3 winners above believe that America is a racist nation, and then tried to fit certain facts into their predisposed beliefs.
I wrote about a virus breaking in real time that didn't exist in 2019 and had killed nearly half a million Americans (by the end of the year). I re-read my 7 articles and it was clear I was interpreting what I was seeing. My 7 specific articles were better than the 7 articles submitted by the winning authors.
They just were. I posted my links and the Pulitzer Links so you could judge for yourself.
Side Note: You know why I really lost? Because I am stupid. One of the judges in my category was Brent Staples. I wrote about him in 2019:
"If you want to write about racism today, from Staples' perspective, you are moving an agenda. How so, you ask? Brent Staples' Pulitzer is arguably the pinnacle to a well-respected career. But Staples isn't writing from prison. Staples is 68 years old and pulling in a nice salary (from the New York Times) while 68 year old Nelson Mandela was still 2 years away from freedom in South Africa. Somehow Staples was able to reach the mountaintop of his profession in the racist United States of America." - BOS
And that is an example of playing the game very, very poorly.
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