By Willy Stern
Tennessean editor Frank Sutherland has never won a Pulitzer Prize. But according to his page-and-a-half-long professional biography, he has been involved in three journalism projects that were “runners-up” for journalism’s highest honor.
Sutherland’s claims in two of those instances may be inflated. Asked about the apparent discrepancies, Sutherland said he wasn’t trying to deceive anyone. He said he tried to get the facts right on his bio but simply may have “failed.”
Sutherland provided the self-written bio to the Scene for purposes of this newspaper’s series about The Tennessean. He says that he wrote it originally for someone introducing him at a speaking engagement and that he has given it out only about “a half-dozen times.”
There is no question about the validity of this statement in the Sutherland bio: “During his two-year tenure there, The Times won numerous state and national awards, and The Times was named runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for public service.”
In 1989, The Times of Shreveport, La., was a Pulitzer finalist for a series documenting the need for education reform in the state. Sutherland became editor of the Shreveport daily in January 1988, and oversaw the series.
These are the statements in the bio that appear to be inflated:
♦ “His reporting on mental health was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for public service.”
This item in his bio does not indicate the year, or the story, for which he was so named. Nevertheless, Sutherland told the Scene that he believed he was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for his Tennessean series, published the year before, documenting substandard conditions at a local mental hospital.
The Pulitzer board did not announce runners-up—“finalists,” as they are now designated—at that time, and Sutherland’s bio statement could not be otherwise substantiated. Sutherland says he won’t use this statement in his bio again.
♦ “Reporting on corruption in [Tennessee] state government begun before his return to Nashville and completed in 1990 was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for public service.”
Sutherland acknowledges this language “may be misleading” and a “mistake.”
Some in journalism find his claims disturbing. “There is an apparent contradiction between what is on Sutherland’s résumé and the facts,” says Glenn Himebaugh, a professor of journalism at Middle Tennessee State University who has taught media ethics for 10 years. “I think it would have been better if [Sutherland] had qualified what he was referring to on his résumé.”
Joel Kaplan, a former Pulitzer Prize finalist himself in investigative reporting for The Tennessean in 1986 and now chairman of the newspaper department at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, says, “The Pulitzers make people do very funny things.”
Explaining his bio statement about the 1974 reporting project, Sutherland says: “The head of the Pulitzer committee at the time told [former Tennessean editor John] Seigenthaler, who told me I was runner-up that year.”
Pulitzer Prize officials began announcing finalists in the competition only in 1980. “There is no way we can authenticate such a claim prior to 1980,” explains Seymour Topping, who oversees the Pulitzer Prize competition today. Topping told the Scene it would “not be completely ethical” to claim credit for having been a Pulitzer finalist before 1980. “It’s just not done,” he says.
Prior to 1980, some editors learned through journalism’s grapevine that a project had been on a short list of finalists. As to Sutherland’s claim, Seigenthaler declined comment. No announcement was made at the time in The Tennessean that Sutherland was a Pulitzer Prize runner-up. Seigenthaler has never publicly claimed the piece was a Pulitzer finalist, nor is there any mention of it in Seigenthaler’s own bio.
Sutherland should “not have put it on his résumé,” says Pulitzer Prize winner Les Payne, a deputy managing editor at Newsday who co-wrote that paper’s 1974 Pulitzer Prize winner in the public service category. “It’s a little inflationary to me.”
William Gaines, a veteran investigative reporter who has shared in two Pulitzers at the Chicago Tribune, says he “would want more documentation” than the informal notification process that Sutherland has outlined before including such an item on a bio.
Karen Rothmyer, author of the book Winning Pulitzers and managing editor of The Nation, was not surprised that Sutherland had included the item on his bio. “I wouldn’t have done it myself, but people stretch their Pulitzers all the time,” she says.
Informed of these reactions, Sutherland told the Scene that it “was the first I’ve ever been told that [what I did was] inappropriate or unethical. I won’t use it again.” He repeated that “nobody had ever disputed” these facts before. “I believe it’s the truth,” he says.
As for the bio statement about the Tennessean project that was entered in the 1990 Pulitzer competition, there is no question that the work was a finalist. The problems in the bio deal with the extent of Sutherland’s contribution to the project and whether any work done in 1990 would have been considered by the judging.
Sutherland became editor of The Tennessean on Nov. 15, 1989. In 1990, The Tennessean was a Pulitzer finalist in the public service category for an investigation of corruption in Tennessee’s charity bingo industry. Overseen by former editor Seigenthaler, the two-and-a-half-year investigation was the work of then-Tennessean reporters Jim O’Hara and Phil Williams.
Their Pulitzer Prize submission consisted of a special “Perspective” section in the paper, titled “Tennessee’s Losing Gamble.” That section was published Dec. 3, 1989. Williams and O’Hara were cited for work done during the 1989 calendar year. But Sutherland’s bio states that the paper was a Pulitzer finalist for work “completed in 1990.” Although the paper’s reporters continued to write stories on the topic into 1990, those would not have been eligible for the Pulitzer award in question.
As for what Sutherland actually did on the award-winning part of the project, two journalists who worked at the paper at the time say he was primarily involved in the layout and design of the special section. What cannot be disputed is that Sutherland had returned to the paper only 18 days before the special section, reflecting two and a half years of work, was published.
According to Topping, any work “done during 1990 would not have been eligible for the 1989 prize.”
“If I said it was for work done during 1990, it’s a mistake on my part,” Sutherland says. He says he had “read the pieces [by Williams and O’Hara]. I was involved in the end of the project. I’m not trying to take credit.”
Williams, now an investigative reporter for WTVF-Channel 5 in Nashville, says that “Frank Sutherland gave us some good advice in the last days of the project.” O’Hara, now executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based health education project Health-Track, says that Sutherland’s bio language may be “awkward,” but “it sounds to me like Frank is giving us credit for the reporting we did.”
Williams, now an investigative reporter for WTVF-Channel 5 in Nashville, says that “Frank Sutherland gave us some good advice in the last days of the project.” O’Hara, now executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based health education project Health-Track, says that Sutherland’s bio language may be “awkward,” but “it sounds to me like Frank is giving us credit for the reporting we did.”
