CarnalNation

The Pulitzer Prize is awarded annually for great literary journalism and news reporting.  And this year, no source has provided more in-depth, breaking coverage of important political news than The National Enquirer.

Uhhh.... Wait a sec, really?

No, it's true.  In a Gawker story, John Cook outlines all the reasons that the Enquirer coverage of John Edwards' adulterous downfall has trumped that of any other media outlet.  “The exposure of Edwards’ pathological lies and frantic corruption is precisely the sort of journalistic behavior that the Pulitzer Prizes were designed to encourage," he says, noting how they reported first on his cheating, his pregnant mistress, the hush money, and the existence of a federal grand jury investigation.  And that's why the Enquirer is campaigning for the prize.

Cook notes how the tabloid was months ahead of the mainstream media in reporting nearly every aspect of the North Carolina senator's sexual escapades, and that they were not wrong about any of it.  The supermarket weekly reported that Rielle Hunter was pregnant with the baby when he was still a presidential candidate; the New York Times didn't even mention Hunter by name until last summer.  By that time, the Enquirer had already printed photographs of the almost-vice president holding the baby in a Beverly Hills hotel room and reported that the mom was being paid $15,000 a month by an Edwards campaign donor.

Gawker refutes all reasons that people say should disqualify the Enquirer from receiving the prize: that it's a magazine and not a newspaper, for instance, and that the Pulitzer goes to depth and not simple reporting of breaking news.  Probably they won't win, of course, but Cook makes a pretty convincing argument that the best news doesn't necessarily come from the most pedigreed sources.

(via MobyLives)