Culture
Pulitzer board rejects Trump's call to withdraw prizes for Russiagate reporting
July 18, 2022 9:09pm
Updated: July 19, 2022 2:14pm
The Pulitzer Prize Board announced Monday that it will not be rescinding the 2018 awards it gave to the New York Times and the Washington Post for its reporting on alleged links between former President Donald Trump and Russia – which have been largely debunked since.
The organization said in a statement that multiple inquiries, including from Trump, prompted it to commission two independent reviews of the two newspapers’ coverage.
“The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes,” said the board.
“The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand.”
The decision drew harsh criticism from those who had watched and criticized the Russiagate coverage.
“That Trump was controlled by the Kremlin became a religious-like conspiracy theory for elite liberalism,” tweeted journalist Glenn Greenwald.
“No facts could shake it: not Mueller charging *nobody* of that crime nor Trump repeatedly attacking vital Russian interests (eg. arming Ukraine, subverting Nord Stream 2).”
That Trump was controlled by the Kremlin became a religious-like conspiracy theory for elite liberalism. No facts could shake it: not Mueller charging *nobody* of that crime nor Trump repeatedly attacking vital Russian interests (eg, arming Ukraine, subverting Nord Stream 2). https://t.co/WsQx2ncNiw
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 19, 2022
“Contemporary journalism: The Pultizer Board says two reviews found no problems in the Russiagate coverage that won a 2018 award for the NYTimes and WPost for their flawed Russiagate coverage,” tweeted RealClear Politics columnist J. Peder Zane, who wrote about the errors.
That Trump was controlled by the Kremlin became a religious-like conspiracy theory for elite liberalism. No facts could shake it: not Mueller charging *nobody* of that crime nor Trump repeatedly attacking vital Russian interests (eg, arming Ukraine, subverting Nord Stream 2). https://t.co/WsQx2ncNiw
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 19, 2022
Zane also reported that the Pulitzer board would not be releasing its findings to the public.
The narrative of Trump-Russia collusion, dubbed “Russiagate,” stemmed from a now-debunked report presented to the FBI by 2016 Hilary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman. Purportedly compiled by a Michael Steel, a former British intelligence official, the documents alleged the Russian government had been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years.”
The leaked Steele dossier was published by Buzzfeed, then amplified by many news outlets.
In April 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced that his team was unable to find any evidence that supported any of its claims. Axios called the botched reporting “one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history.”
