Pulitzer's Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism

14. Two Types of Teaming

          Two Types of Teaming That’s a good paper; it’s won a Pulitzer Prize. —Esther Marro to her son, newly hired Newsday reporter Anthony J. Marro,  aewsday and the Philadelphia Inquirer, winners of three of the Public Service Pulitzers awarded in the s, had to break through debilitating handicaps on their way to becoming national models of project journalism. Truth be told, it was a seriously flawed Newsday that won the  Pulitzer Gold Medal. The paper had been responsible for the significant public service of “dethroning DeKoning,” as its own corporate history described the exposé that led to William DeKoning’s imprisonment. But even that  book, by staffer Robert F. Keeler, notes that personal interests inspired the drive led by managing editor Alan Hathway to get dirt on the area’s labor czar. In the early years after Alicia Patterson took over the paper in , Newsday had treated DeKoning with kid gloves, often concentrating on what appeared to be his philanthropic side. But then, Hathway himself became involved with a campaign to build an arena for Long Island. It was a move that, “combined with his private ambition to make some money, overruled journalistic common sense,” Keeler wrote. Eventually, Hathway’s interests had come into conflict with those of DeKoning, who controlled the workforce that was to be involved in building the arena project. And later, when DeKoning also backed a Republican congressional candidate to oppose Newsday’s choice for office, that second conflict became a “triggering event that finally pushed Hathway over the edge, prompting him to convert his files on DeKoning into an aggressive series of stories.”  So much for the “disinterested” nature of the journalism that the Gold Medal was supposed to recognize. The Pulitzer board probably had no idea. The vintage- Newsday was a weak journalistic model in other ways, too. “Seizing her newspaper’s greatest moment of glory,” Keeler writes, “Alicia Patterson decided to use the Pulitzer Prize not as a crown of laurel, but as a whip.” Sure, that was partly to discourage staffers at the young paper from becoming smug in their success. But more than that, she considered the paper still “minor league” in its editing and its appearance. The copy desk was almost nonexistent, for example , leading to amateurish style snafus. After she invested heavily in its improvement, the paper was in much better shape by —the year Patterson suddenly died of a stomach ulcer at fifty-six, leaving her wealthy husband to take over. He was Harry Guggenheim, a miningfamily heir whose relatives had founded New York’s Guggenheim Museum with some of the family riches. The Greene-ing of Newsday Of all Newsday’s investments after winning the  prize, the best might have been the hiring of Robert W. Greene to run investigations for the paper. Bob Greene was a born snoop. He had been involved in some type of investigation work since high school, when he was employed as a “sniffer” for a department store, checking out the underarms of fancy dresses that women bought and later returned. His olfactory test proved whether a woman had worn the garment to a party before bringing it back for a refund. In his early newsroom years at a New Jersey paper, other sniffing around led him toward local corruption that warranted a closer study. But Greene left newspaper work for a succession of government crime-busting jobs, where he sharpened his organizational skills and elevated his promotional abilities. Groups like Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver’s subcommittee studying organized crime, and the succession of regional crime commissions for which Greene worked, were very publicity-conscious. By parceling out information to reporters in the late s, commissions taught the public about “a guy by the name of James Hoffa, who nobody really knew at the time,” says Greene. At the New York City Anti-Crime Commission, Greene also had been a major source of scoops for Newsday, helping reporters bring down DeKoning when it won its  Public Service Prize. After a falling-out with NewYork commissioners in a change of leadership, Greene jumped in  to the paper that he had come to admire for its tenacity, and for its shiny Gold Medal. Quickly, he built a reputation as a unique newsroom character.                   At Newsday, he was far from the only one. Greene started out answering to managing editor Hathway, a boisterous, profane Chicago-style chief. Greene still laughs when...