Perverse Journalism Prize Loves You, Your Worst Enemy
The Si Newhouse School's journalism awards are next month, and the mood at the ceremony could quickly get uncomfortable. Starting with Arianna Huffington getting a Lifetime Achivement award that last went to her bitter nemesis.
Tim Russert took Syracuse University's Fred Dressler award last year. This year, the prize, awarded by the university's Newhouse communications school, will go to Arianna Huffington, who hated Russert and his wife Maureen Orth and reportedly hired a private investigator to tail them as part of a 15-year feud.
We're guessing NBC won't be buying a table again this year.
(The announcement of Huffington's prize is expected later today; the school circulated early word of the award to a prize-related email list.)
Also awkward: The finalists include, in one category, David Barstow's Pulitzer-winning exposé on shill generals in the New York Times — and in another category a takedown of that very exposé as "selective" and "misleading," by Rachel Sklar, then of the Huffington Post.
Sklar, meanwhile, left Arianna Huffington's website after having some of her coverage spiked for violating "HuffPost's editorial position" on political matters and after reportedly being pulled back from TV appearances. So presumably she's not sitting at Arianna's table.
The mingling should be interesting. If you're going, bring a flask.