No, the work was eligible. I doubt Dershowitz's petition had any sway over the board. Frankly, while Julie Brown's reporting was astounding, there were better work. The Herald was a finalist for a story they did about gold.
I came across this open letter from Alan Dershowitz, lobbying against their Pulitzer consideration[1]. I haven't seen a public response from either the reporter or the Miami Herald, so I'm curious about their views of the points he brings up.
To be clear, I'm not saying he is accurate. I just don't know enough either way. He's obviously an interested party to the whole story.
Do you think we should trust his narrative? I remember watching the disingenuous way he debated Chomsky on Israel/Palestine and thinking that he was totally sleazy
Every public debate I have ever seen Dershowitz engage in (maybe 6 or 7 over the years) was profoundly disingenuous. Some of it I would characterize as blatant lying. Above and beyond that, he is consistently extremely rude to his interlocutors.
The man pretends to be an intellectual, but makes a mockery of it. It’s really a shame that Harvard continues to lend him its institutional credibility, and that other respected institutions invite him to comment about anything ever.
(I have no insight about the Epstein stuff; I’m just talking about his past public debates about a variety of legal and political topics.)
I am not sure. Like you, I have seen him engage in disingenuous methods of debating. However, it does seem he offered 'hard' proof to corroborate his story, which is why I'm curious to see how the Herald would respond. It seems we'll find out more about the Epstein affair as there are renewed pushes to investigate what happened in the plea deal.
Dersh argues many things confidently and aggressively that seem perhaps facially convincing. Or perhaps you simply don't have time or the presence of mind to present a counterargument in the moment. That's his "strength" as a lawyer. Don't believe any claim until you see the underlying exculpatory evidence, which only he claims exists and only he claims is exculpatory. In this case, he presents none of the evidence. Not one single piece of it. He only presents what the response of others was upon seeing it. He can pull this gag on the general public, but in a court one requires discovery.
I was actually browsing the Pulitzer site after reading this year's winners list - I decided to go to the beginning and find the first reference to 'President'. Louis Seibold of New York World for an interview with Woodrow Wilson. So I google Louis Seibold and come up with this '10 journos caught fabricating" on the Politic site (which includes the Dershowitz story, that's why I'm replying to your comment !) https://www.politico.com/story/2012/07/10-journos-caught-fab...
No, the work was eligible. I doubt Dershowitz's petition had any sway over the board. Frankly, while Julie Brown's reporting was astounding, there were better work. The Herald was a finalist for a story they did about gold.