'bout damn time...

[Joe]

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The Times had asked the professor, Mark von Hagen, to examine the coverage of the correspondent, Walter Duranty, after receiving a letter in early July from the Pulitzer Prize Board seeking its comment. In its letter to The Times, the board said it was responding to "a new round of demands" that the prize awarded to Mr. Duranty in 1932 be revoked. The most vocal demands came from Ukrainian-Americans who contended that Mr. Duranty should be punished for failing to report on a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933.

In his report to The Times, Professor von Hagen described the coverage for which Mr. Duranty won the Pulitzer - his writing in 1931, a year before the onset of the famine - as a "dull and largely uncritical recitation of Soviet sources."

"That lack of balance and uncritical acceptance of the Soviet self-justification for its cruel and wasteful regime," the professor wrote, "was a disservice to the American readers of The New York Times and the liberal values they subscribe to and to the historical experience of the peoples of the Russian and Soviet empires and their struggle for a better life."

In his eight-page report, Professor von Hagen, an expert on early 20th-century Russian history, did not address whether the Pulitzer Board should revoke the award it gave to Mr. Duranty. Mr. Duranty died in 1957.

But in comments first published yesterday in The New York Sun, Professor von Hagen said he believed the board should indeed take such action. He echoed those remarks in an interview last evening with The Times.

I was convinced this was never going to happen, but better late than never.

[The Dark]

Good. Stalin's apologist shouldn't have received the award, particularly once his lack of research came to light. He was just a mouthpiece for the Soviets.

[Frank Hipper]

Wonder if Stas Bush will pop back in just to rant against this?

I don't see any actions being taken to revoke Duranty's Pulitzer mentioned in that article, other than a call for action.

[Andrew J.]

Did the Pulitzer have lower standards back then?