Pulitzer Board Rebukes Juror Eliana Johnson for Calling Out Winner Who Mocked Israeli Hostages
Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Eliana Johnson, who was invited to participate in a Pulitzer Prize nominating jury on national reporting, was rebuked by the board for calling out a winner in the commentary category who mocked Israeli hostages – and responded by calling their lecture on confidentiality 'preposterous.'
The conservative journalist questioned whether Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha – whose essays in the New Yorker won the commentary Pulitzer for 'deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience' – had been properly vetted. Weeks before jury deliberations began, Toha wrote on Facebook that a woman kidnapped from her home on Oct. 7 was not a 'hostage' and criticized the media for humanizing kidnapped Israelis.
'Imagine for a moment a Pulitzer going to an extremist Israeli settler poet who had minimized and mocked the suffering of civilians in Gaza,' Johnson wrote on Friday in the Beacon. 'You can't, because it would never happen.'
Johnson says she internally pressed the Pulitzer board on whether Toha was vetted – and whether fellow jurors who openly criticized Israel immediately after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack had recused themselves from deliberations over the commentary prize.
Johnson wrote that in response, Pulitzer administrator Marjorie Miller accused Johnson of violating a confidentiality agreement, while allowing that while jurors are chosen for 'character, expertise and integrity … we occasionally misjudge.'
'They sure do!' Johnson wrote. 'Here we have an institution, ostensibly committed to supporting 'fearless' journalism, trying to strangle reporting about what was known to the jury and when — and which board members cast votes on this award.'
Johnson says when she agreed to serve on the nominating jury for the national reporting category in November, she signed an agreement 'to keep my membership on the jury and our selection of finalists confidential 'pending the formal announcement of the winners.''
'The Pulitzer board's position that any reporter who participates on one of its many juries is prohibited from doing any reporting about the organization itself –even when one of its awards has become an international news story — is preposterous,' Johnson wrote.
Johnson says it took 'half a second' for Abu Toha's public remarks to emerge after his win.
'How on earth is this girl called a hostage? (And this is the case of most 'hostages'),' Toha wrote on Facebook weeks before deliberations got underway. 'This is Emily Damari, a 28-year-old UK-Israeli soldier … So this girl is called a 'hostage?' This soldier who was close to the border with a city that she and her country have been occupying is called a 'hostage.''
Damari was abducted from her home, spending nearly 16 months as a Hamas captive. She has since denounced the Pulitzer's prize for Toha, saying it honors 'a voice that denies truth, erases victims, and desecrates the memory of the murdered.'
Johnson said her questions included whether members of the Pulitzer board were aware of Toha's statements, and whether members who have openly called Israel an 'occupying power' recused themselves from the process. When Miller gave a 'non-response response,' Johnson said, she began emailing Pulitzer board members directly.
'The vast majority did not reply,' Johnson wrote. 'One cited a commitment to keeping the board's deliberations confidential. I did not push back.'
That's when Miller sent the email to Johnson, with the subject line 'Confidentiality,' 'alleging that my emails violated the confidentiality agreement I signed when I became a Pulitzer juror.'
Miller and her colleagues 'have misjudged, starting with the minor issue of what the confidentiality agreement actually says,' Johnson said. 'As part of providing my services to the Pulitzers, I agreed not to discuss deliberations over the National Reporting category, nor to reveal the finalists before the winner was announced. I did not agree to refrain from reporting on a separate category in which I had no role. … But hey, the Pulitzer board, they occasionally misjudge. Don't you dare report on it.'
A message seeking comment from the Pulitzer committee was not immediately returned Saturday.
The post Pulitzer Board Rebukes Juror Eliana Johnson for Calling Out Winner Who Mocked Israeli Hostages appeared first on TheWrap.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
17 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Yemen's al-Qaida branch leader threatens Trump, Musk and others
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The leader of al-Qaida's Yemen branch has threatened both U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip in his first video message since taking over the group last year. The half-hour video message by Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki, which spread online early Saturday via supporters of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, also included calls for lone-wolf militants to assassinate leaders in Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Arab states over the war, which has decimated Gaza. The video of al-Awlaki's speech showed images of Trump and Musk, as well as U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth. It also included images of logos of Musk's businesses, including the electric carmaker Tesla. 'There are no red lines after what happened and is happening to our people in Gaza," al-Awlaki said. "Reciprocity is legitimate.' Yemen's al-Qaida branch long thought to be most dangerous Though believed to be weakened in recent years due to infighting and suspected U.S. drone strikes killing its leaders, the group known by the acronym AQAP had been considered the most dangerous branch of al-Qaida still operating after the 2011 killing by U.S. Navy SEALs of founder Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In 2022, a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan killed bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, who also helped plot 9/11. The Sept. 11 attacks then began decades of war by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, and fomented the rise of the Islamic State group. Al-Awlaki already has a $6 million U.S. bounty on his head, as Washington says al-Awlaki 'has publicly called for attacks against the United States and its allies.' He replaced AQAP leader Khalid al-Batarfi, whose death was announced by the group in 2024. Israel-Hamas war a focus of the Houthis as well AQAP seizing onto the Israel-Hamas war follows the efforts of Yemen's Houthi rebels to do the same. The Iranian-backed group has launched missile attacks on Israel and targeted commercial vessels moving through the Red Sea corridor, as well as American warships. The U.S. Navy has described their campaign against the Houthis as the most intense combat it has faced since World War II. The Trump administration also launched its own intense campaign of strikes on the Houthis, which only ended before the president's recent trip to the Middle East. The Houthis' international profile rose as the group remains mired in Yemen's long-stalemated war. Al-Awlaki may be betting on the same for his group, which U.N. experts have estimated has between 3,000 and 4,000 active fighters and passive members. The group raises money by robbing banks and money exchange shops, as well as smuggling weapons, counterfeiting currencies and ransom operations, according to the U.N. The Shiite Zaydi Houthis have previously denied working with AQAP, a Sunni extremist group. However, AQAP targeting of the Houthis has dropped in recent years, while the militants keep attacking Saudi-led coalition forces who have battled the Houthis. 'As the Houthis gain popularity as leaders of the 'Arab and Muslim world's resistance' against Israel, al-Awlaki seeks to challenge their dominance by presenting himself as equally concerned about the situation in Gaza,' said Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert of the Basha Report risk advisory firm. 'For a national security and foreign policy community increasingly disengaged from Yemen, this video is a clear reminder: Yemen still matters.'
Associated Press
18 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Attorneys in NCAA antitrust case to share $475M in fees, with potential to reach $725M
The attorneys who shepherded the blockbuster antitrust lawsuit to fruition for hundreds of thousands of college athletes will share in just over $475 million in fees, and the figure could rise to more than $725 million over the next 10 years. The request for plaintiff legal fees in the House vs. NCAA case, outlined in a December court filing and approved Friday night, struck experts in class-action litigation as reasonable. Co-lead counsels Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kessler asked for $475.2 million, or 18.3% of the cash common funds of $2.596 billion. They also asked for an additional $250 million, for a total of $725.2 million, based on a widely accepted estimate of an additional $20 billion in direct benefits to athletes over the 10-year settlement term. That would be 3.2% of what would then be a $22.596 billion settlement. 'Class Counsel have represented classes of student-athletes in multiple litigations challenging NCAA restraints on student-athlete compensation, and they have achieved extraordinary results. Class Counsel's representation of the settlement class members here is no exception,' U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken wrote. University of Buffalo law professor Christine Bartholomew, who researched about 1,300 antitrust class-action settlements from 2005-22 for a book she authored, told The Associated Press the request for attorneys' fees could have been considered a bit low given the difficulty of the case, which dates back five years. She said it is not uncommon for plaintiffs' attorneys to be granted as much as 30% of the common funds. Attorneys' fees generally are calculated by multiplying an hourly rate by the number of hours spent working on a case. In class-action lawsuits, though, plaintiffs' attorneys work on a contingency basis, meaning they get paid at the end of the case only if the class wins a financial settlement. 'Initially, you look at it and think this is a big number,' Bartholomew said. 'When you look at how contingency litigation works generally, and then you think about how this fits into the class-action landscape, this is not a particularly unusual request.' The original lawsuit was filed in June 2020 and it took until November 2023 for Wilken to grant class certification, meaning she thought the case had enough merit to proceed. Elon University law professor Catherine Dunham said gaining class certification is challenging in any case, but especially a complicated one like this. 'If a law firm takes on a case like this where you have thousands of plaintiffs and how many depositions and documents, what that means is the law firm can't do other work while they're working on the case and they are taking on the risk they won't get paid,' Dunham said. 'If the case doesn't certify as a class, they won't get paid.' In the request for fees, the firm of Hagens Berman said it had dedicated 33,952 staff hours to the case through mid-December 2024. Berman, whose rate is $1,350 per hour, tallied 1,116.5 hours. Kessler, of Winston & Strawn, said he worked 1,624 hours on the case at a rate of $1,980 per hour. The case was exhaustive. Hundreds of thousands of documents totaling millions of pages were produced by the defendants — the NCAA, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC — as part of the discovery process. Berman and Kessler wrote the 'plaintiffs had to litigate against six well-resourced defendants and their high-powered law firms who fought every battle tooth and nail. To fend off these efforts, counsel conducted extensive written discovery and depositions, and submitted voluminous expert submissions and lengthy briefing. In addition, class counsel also had to bear the risk of perpetual legislative efforts to kill these cases.' Antitrust class-action cases are handled by the federal court system and have been harder to win since 2005, when the U.S. Class Action Fairness Act was passed, according to Bartholomew. 'Defendants bring motion after motion and there's more of a pro-defendant viewpoint in federal court than there had been in state court,' she said. 'As a result, you would not be surprised that courts, when cases do get through to fruition, are pretty supportive of applications for attorneys' fees because there's great risk that comes from bringing these cases fiscally for the firms who, if the case gets tossed early, never gets compensated for the work they've done.' ___ AP college sports:
CNBC
23 minutes ago
- CNBC
Jobs, profit-taking and 2 other things that drove the stock market this week
The very public implosion of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk 's alliance may have captivated Wall Street this week, but the government's solid monthly employment report was the real showstopper. In addition to those two developments, earnings from Club names CrowdStrike and Broadcom , and the back-and-forth between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on trade defined the market. 1. Jobs, stocks , Fed : The S & P 500 jumped 1% on Friday on the labor data , which showed job growth in May that was strong enough to ease fears of a recession and warmer-but-not-too-hot wage inflation. With both sides of the Federal Reserve's dual mandate of maximizing employment and fostering price stability in check, the market still felt comfortable rooting for an interest rate cut down the line. For the week, the S & P 500 rose 1.5% , logging its back-to-back weekly gains. For the second time this week, and despite Friday's solid nonfarm payrolls data, Trump prodded Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to cut rates – this time, calling for a full percentage point reduction . The market is predicting virtually no chance of a reduction at the central bank's upcoming meeting later this month. On Wednesday, the president called for a Fed rate cut after the weak ADP private sector hiring report. Powell has been saying all along that he won't be influenced by politics and will be economic data dependent. The Fed chief has also said he would like to see more data on whether Trump's tariffs, which are moving targets and not finalized, negatively impact the economy. 2. Scorched Earth : Could the relationship between the world's most powerful man, Trump, and the world's richest, Musk, end any other way than the way it did Thursday? Both billionaires went after each other on social media. Trump called Musk "crazy" and threatened to kill federal contracts with Musk's companies, including SpaceX. Musk called for Trump's impeachment, criticized Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" of tax cuts and spending priorities making its way on Capitol Hill, and then said SpaceX would decommission its Dragon spacecraft. Musk later took back that last part. Tesla shares sank over 14% on Thursday – but on Friday, recovered more than 3.5%. Also on Friday, Trump said he was not interested in having a call with Musk. Putting all the drama aside, there are real issues at play here concern the federal budget deficit and the billions upon billions of dollars of stock market value that has been erased from Musk's Tesla . Shares have lost more than 25% year to date. 3. Back on, again : The other Washington-related saga that has implications for stocks is trade talks between the U.S. and China. Trump announced on Friday that U.S.-China trade talks will take place Monday in London. The news comes after Trump and Xi finally talked on the phone Thursday. Last month, high-level U.S. officials met with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva, Switzerland, where they each agreed to pause most of the triple-digit tariff rates on each other's imports. Before the Trump-Xi call, the U.S. president accused China of violating that agreement – to which the Chinese accused the U.S. of not adhering to the deal. Reuters reported on Friday that China granted licenses for rare earth elements to the top three U.S. automakers. Back in April, China, which dominates in rare earths, put export curbs on the resources, which are key to making many of our modern-day products. 4. Records, then selling : Both CrowdStrike and Broadcom saw their stocks finish at record closing highs ahead of this week's respective earnings reports, which led to selling. CRWD YTD mountain CrowdStrike YTD Shares of CrowdStrike hit its closing record of just under $489 on Tuesday. Then after the bell, the cybersecurity delivered a mostly solid quarter . The stock lost 5.8% on Wednesday. Good old profit-taking after a big run to all-time highs contributed to the selling, and so did concerns about mixed guidance and some noise around federal government inquiries into the company — though nothing has changed in our stance toward last July's massive IT outage and its dealings with software reseller Carahsoft. The outage was caused by a botched CrowdStrike software update. CEO George Kurtz appeared on "Mad Money" with Jim and defended his company in the probes , saying the company is cooperating with investigators. On earnings night, we raised our price target to $500 per share from $400 but kept our hold-equivalent 2 rating in recognition of this year's more than 35% gain in the stock. Shares were modestly higher on Thursday and Friday. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom YTD Broadcom shares closed at a record high of $261 each Wednesday. Then, after Thursday's close, Broadcom delivered a strong quarter and upbeat comments about its key artificial intelligence business. There are no signs that demand for the company's custom AI chips, or "accelerators," and networking solutions will let up anytime soon. On the software side, Broadcom continues to make the most of its blockbuster VMware acquisition. But again, profit-takers swooped in during Friday's session and pushed the stock down 5%. On earnings night, we raised our price target on the stock to $290 per share from $230 but kept our 2 rating. During Friday's Morning Meeting, Jim did tell investors without a position in Broadcom that it would be a good time to buy, starting with a partial position then building it up over time. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long CRWD, AVGO. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
