Sunday, November 21, 2010

Attention, Pulitzer Prize Jury: Come On, Already. This Is Frank Rich's Year.

In 1987, Frank Rich was a well-deserved finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

But unaccountably, for the last 23 years since then, Rich has not once been in final contention for journalism's top prize.

This ridiculous, inexpicable omission has come despite thirteen years as the NYT's lead drama critic -- where he was, without debate, the best of his generation -- and another sixteen years on the NYT's op-ed page. Meanwhile, Rich's columnist colleagues (Nicholas Kristof, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, and Tom Friedman) have collected a passel of nominations and wins among them.

This is Rich's year. Don't agree? Take a look at today's op-ed page. If you don't shudder with fear at Rich's message, then you simply can't be moved by the power of potent, well-arranged words.

While Dowd tut-tuts comically at the latest failings of her fallen hero, Barack Obama, Rich eloquently warns against the persistent, pernicious threat of Republican firebrand Sarah Palin. Under the perfect title -- "Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha" -- Rich does his passionate best to rile us with the fear that she may make it to White House.

Instead of simply whining about Palin's faux populism, or making fun of her appearance or malaprops -- that's Dowd's default position -- Rich prescribes a solution to her opponents, if they'll only listen:

Revealingly, Sarah Palin’s potential rivals for the 2012 nomination have not joined the party establishment in publicly criticizing her. They are afraid of crossing Palin and the 80 percent of the party that admires her. So how do they stop her? Not by feeding their contempt in blind quotes to the press — as a Romney aide did by telling Time’s Mark Halperin she isn’t “a serious human being.” Not by hoping against hope that Murdoch might turn off the media oxygen that feeds both Palin’s viability and News Corporation’s bottom line. Sooner or later Palin’s opponents will instead have to man up — as Palin might say — and actually summon the courage to take her on mano-a-maverick in broad daylight.

That's classic Rich -- offering his audience not just a vituperative complaint or attack, but also a reasoned recipe for change. He reports his columns by voraciously consuming the culture, and embracing the web: each week the online version of his column links to dozens of articles, commentaries and reports that illuminate his point of view.

Rich has been a powerful force in American journalism for most of his career -- not just as a writer, but also as an informal adviser to NYT editors on matters of hiring and content. He also wrote a moving memoir in 2000, "Ghost Light," that could have justified a Pulitzer on its own. (His other books include a collection of his NYT theater reviews, "Hot Seat," and a 2006 attack on the Bush adminstration called "The Greatest Story Ever Sold."

Yes, Rich preaches to the choir: his mostly-liberal NYT audience probably rejoices each week in how much it agrees with him. But that undersells his gifts at argument and persuasion. Often, Rich's columns -- at 1500 words, longer than any of his colleagues -- go deeper into explanation and example. His raw intelligence and deft touch combine to make him the most powerful liberal voice of our time.

Obviously, there's more to life than a prize, and Rich doesn't need the reward of a Pulitzer jury to measure his worth. But in an industry that still bows down before the almighty prefix -- "Pulitzer prize-winning journalist" -- it seems only fair that Frank Rich at last get his.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rich and his weak-handed wavering pen qualify for no the Flamekeeper of the Press prize. Your little devotional here may claim itself to be born of love, but is dubious at best, so why don't you just stick your loathsome effort to routine critique of rosy minutiae, eh?

Anonymous said...

Don't let the haters get you down, NYTPicker.

Ken Cady said...

Frank Rich deserves any award they can come up with...good ones, that is! Nice to see the nytpicker going to bat for him.

DeJordy said...

Frank Rich is a bitter leftists who gets hysterical about his opponents. If he wins, it will yet another time a liberal is awarded for his vies.

Anonymous said...

I agree that Rich's column Sunday on Palin was well-written. Unfortunately, his usual fare is totally predictable -- just varying rants on his dislike for conservatives. Moreover, as a resident of southern Missouri, I sense he has no awarness of the country outside the bicoastal enclaves of secular liberalism. I doubt if many of the people I live around would be persuaded by anything he says. But since the Pulitzer tends to go to liberals, it's probably his turn to get one.

Anonymous said...

For the record FR's no leftwinger... Move him to any other nation on earth outside this one, and watch him bundle up nicely with all other opinionated Americs. In the eyes of anyone who can think clearly, he is asleep.

Anonymous said...

I rarely read Rich any longer. He's ranted too much and become much too predictable. As someone else pointed, he has little ability or desire to understand people outside of his echo chamber.

Anonymous said...

Rich has given up. He writes as if he's disgusted with his colleagues, with the pathetic NY cocktail crowd, and just writes for the joy of overlaying with embedded hyperlinks. A man who has resigned on his power, only abuses that power by taking up space.

Anonymous said...

Are you kidding me? Frank Rich for a Pulitzer? Why not Sarah Palin for a Nobel, or Glenn Beck for an Emmy? Disgusting. Unsubscribe.

Richard Braun said...

Rich has become a hectoring crank, predictable and irritating. A back-patting Pulitzer will only encourage him to take up more Sunday space. Enough already.

Anonymous said...

Poor Rich, frankly that he'll be predictable on Sunday is for sure.

Anonymous said...

He's holding back it seems. Like he's staging his shortcomings and that's ok, why throw yourself in the fire that'd be pure madness. The readers that intersect with his column he should value in a purely mathematical sense. That whole activity, Rich' readers reading Rich, well first of all, exposure to Rich overall is a positive thing, then again no one but Rich gets richer that way.

Anonymous said...

I think that this is the first positive thing you have said about the paper. Congrats. There are too many good things to be said about the paper of record; how about offering a few now and again.
And, yes, Frank deserves the prize. If not him, who? If not now, when?