Comment by 99_00 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 99_00 | Hacker News Reader

Stories that won in the past. Has anything come of the investigations into Trump's taxes, criminal inquiries, or connections with Russian interference?

0 out of 3 is not a good record.

David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times For an exhaustive 18-month investigation of President Donald Trump’s finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges.

Staff of The Wall Street Journal For uncovering President Trump’s secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment.

Staffs of The New York Times and The Washington Post For deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.

Can you rephrase your question? What came of these investigations is that a lot of people read them and learned something, which is the primary goal of most journalists. Some organizations, like ProPublica, explicitly focus on "impact", but most do not, and I think impact is just one of many things the Pulitzer judges consider.

Is what they learned factual? Because none of the supposed wrong doings was judged wrong by any court.

I mean if you don't trust Pulitzer-winning reporters then you shouldn't trust anonymous internet commenters, but since asked: yes, it was factual.

Of the three investigations you picked, the first was about tax "dodging" which is not necessarily illegal. From the second investigation, I'll pull one quote for you:

> Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to eight federal crimes, including tax evasion and making false statements to a bank, capping a monthslong investigation into his business dealings and work as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer. For the president, it opens up a perilous new legal front.

For the third investigation on Russian interference, there are a whole pile of convictions you can look up if you're interested. I think Paul Manafort and Roger Stone are the biggest names you may be familiar with.

Arguably, the 2022 Editorial Writing winner came from those stories, though it’s not the outcome any of the involved authors would want:

Lisa Falkenberg, Michael Lindenberger, Joe Holley and Luis Carrasco of the Houston Chronicle

For a campaign that, with original reporting, revealed voter suppression tactics, rejected the myth of widespread voter fraud and argued for sensible voting reforms.

I don't see the connection here. What do these have to do with '22 awards?

Can't speak for OP, but it was interesting for me in that it points to either:

a) speculative reporting that turned out to have less basis in reality than was initially thought (to the point that top-tier award-winning journalism wasn't actually true), or

b) a disconnect between facts on the ground as reported by journalists, and our individual, societal, or governmental inability to effect change based on those facts

My personal take is that it's probably a combination of the two. A bunch of anonymous sources cited by the press throughout Trump's presidency were either never corroborated by public sources, or were flatly proven to be incorrect as more facts came out. But there was also a TON of totally credible, well-sourced journalism in that era that the US federal and state governments have completely ignored, often with the support of their constituents who dismiss even the absolute best reporting as "fake news."

Looking at the 2022 winners, it's personally disheartening for me to think how much of what's listed there will just continue on as the status quo. Though as a counterpoint, it also looks like there's some wins that were already corrected, like the Florida battery plant exposé that (if I take the Pulitzer description here at face value) resulted in new safety measures to protect workers.

Makes sense. Do pulitzers ever get rescinded when it turns out the material was bogus?

What examples do you have of major award winning journalism from the Trump years that was proven to be based on lies? There’s certainly been a lack of consequence on some things (like the tax leaks, which are still part of ongoing court cases) but I can’t think of any major examples (beyond the Steele dossier) that meet your description. An absence of major consequence doesn’t disprove the validity of the journalism.

Do you have any concrete Trump-era examples of widely celebrated mainstream reporting that turned out to be falsified, or credible well-sourced journalism that was incorrectly categorized as fake news by mainstream news outlets?

The only examples I can think of revolve around sloppy science reporting w.r.t. non-peer-reviewed covid studies, but the press got the big picture right on that, eventually.

They don't lie. They mislead.

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