At the beginning of May, we told you about Palestinian 'journalist' and poet Mosab Abu Toha receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
In that story, an Israeli hostage shamed the Pulitzer committee for giving an award to a man who denied the October 7 atrocities and dismissed the fact she was even a hostage for over 500 days.
Turns out, one person on the nominating jury -- Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson -- was asking questions about Abu Toha winning the award.
Here's a thread of what happened because Johnson dared to do what reporters do:
THREAD 🧵:
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
In November, the Pulitzer Prize committee invited Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson to serve on the nominating jury for the National Reporting category.
This week, she found herself on the receiving end of a rebuke from the Pulitzer board after trying to… pic.twitter.com/MeR2jdD8hP
The post continues:
This week, she found herself on the receiving end of a rebuke from the Pulitzer board after trying to ask its members a few questions—like why a prize went to a Palestinian “poet” who mocked Israeli hostages.
Here's more
The board awarded the Pulitzer prize for Commentary to Mosab Abu Toha for essays in the New Yorker that, it said, combined “deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel.”
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
That's one way of describing Abu Toha's writing.
Just weeks before jury deliberations began, Abu Toha wrote on Facebook that a 28-year-old woman kidnapped from her home on Oct. 7 was not a “hostage” and denounced the media for humanizing Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
He's a peach.
“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 writes. “You can’t, because it would never happen.”
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
Israeli contestants get harassed at singing competitions, like Eurovision.
The Free Beacon wanted to know:
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
-Were members of the Pulitzer board themselves aware of Abu Toha’s public statements?
-Did Pulitzer board member and Columbia University president Claire Shipman cast a vote on this entry?
-Did Pulitzer board member Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Boycott,…
The last question reads:
Did Pulitzer board member Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions supporter who, eleven days after Hamas's savage attack on Israel, signed an open letter describing Israel as 'the occupying power' and decried its 'grave crimes against humanity,' recuse himself from deliberations over this entry?
All reasonable questions deserving of answers.
We put some of these questions to Pulitzer Prize administrator Marjorie Miller, also a board member, and received a non-response response about the board’s commitment to recognizing "excellence in reporting." pic.twitter.com/UkQjHRjXw5
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
The non-response is not a surprise.
So Johnson started emailing members of the Pulitzer board individually in an effort to shake loose the inside story about the board’s deliberations over this award. The vast majority did not reply. One cited a commitment to keeping the board’s deliberations confidential. And a…
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
Again: this is what journalists are supposed to do.
On Tuesday morning, Johnson received an email from Miller, subject line "Confidentiality," alleging that her emails violated the confidentiality agreement she signed when she became a Pulitzer juror and that, while jurors are selected "for their character, expertise and integrity… pic.twitter.com/pdMZCcEiMo
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
Oh, really?
'Confidentiality?'
“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 writes.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 16, 2025
Miller is right about that. She and her colleagues have misjudged, starting with the minor issue of what the confidentiality agreement actually says. 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.
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. 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.
Miller told the Free Beacon that the Pulitzer Prizes 'are based on a review of works that have been formally submitted for consideration.' See no evil, hear no evil.
Johnson is right.
People deserve answers to her questions, including former hostage Emily Damari.
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