A little too risky

An article about the Pulitizer Prizes at Editor & Publisher has this interesting tidbit:

Zack Stalberg still remembers the oddest experience he had during his two-year stint as a Pulitzer Prize jurist.

The longtime editor of The Philadelphia Daily News was on the committee choosing finalists in the commentary category in 2002 when a submission from The Onion, the irreverent humor newspaper, came before the group.

“As it went around the table, you could see that people were blown away by this work,” Stalberg said about the entry, which included the paper’s mock Sept. 11 coverage. “But it was a little too different, a little too risky. I voted to make it a finalist, but nobody else did.”