Contact:	Fred Knubel	
		Director of Public Information
		212-854-5573, fhk1@columbia.edu		FOR IMMEDIATE USE
									November 17, 1997


Pulitzer Board Opens Public Service Prize
To On-line Journalism

	The Pulitzer Prize Board announced today that newspapers in future
 competitions for the Public Service award may include on-line journalism as one 
of the elements in their entries.  The Board stated its intention to continue to 
respond appropriately to the development of the medium.
	The new entry requirements for the Public Service category will apply to 
work done in 1998 for the gold medal awarded in 1999.  The Board made its 
decision at the annual fall meeting, which is devoted to administrative matters, at 
Columbia University on Nov. 14.  Of the 14 Pulitzer awards in journalism, Public 
Service is the only category that takes account of the use of all of a newspaper's 
journalistic resources.
	"The Board has taken what it regards as a significant step in recognition of 
the growing importance of the work being done by newspapers in on-line 
journalism," Seymour Topping, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, said.  He 
stressed that "in keeping with the Pulitzer mandate in journalism, only United 
States newspapers published daily, Sunday, or at least once a week during the 
calendar year are eligible to enter the competition."
	The revised category definition for the 1999 award will state: "For a 
distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper through the 
use of its journalistic resources, which, as well as reporting, may include 
editorials, cartoons, photographs and an on-line presentation, a gold medal."  The 
entry requirements will specify: "If an on-line presentation is submitted as part of 
a Public Service entry it must be in the form of a single CD-ROM whose content 
pertains to the print items in the exhibit and was staff produced on the 
newspaper's web site."
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