Breaking: The Unbalanced Gets Robbed of a Pulitzer Prize
And I, for one, will not stand for it
Ladies and gentlemen, the 2017 Pulitzer Prize Awards Winners have been announced. For some unknown reason, we here at The Unbalanced were not even listed as finalists for any Prize in journalism. We’ve been at this for over THREE MONTHS. We’ve had writers featured on Medium’s “Top Writers” lists. We’ve been feeding our viewers hot sports and political takes and information with every ounce of passion in our bodies (when we’re not at the bar watching sports, er- I mean, doing journalistic research.) The biased media has royally screwed us once again. Sad!
Here are all of the awards we should have won, accompanied by the actual winners and why we’re better than them.
Public Service
New York Daily News and ProPublica
For uncovering, primarily through the work of reporter Sarah Ryley, widespread abuse of eviction rules by the police to oust hundreds of people, most of them poor minorities.
We’re good people. I usually recycle and I helped an old lady across the street one time but maybe we didn’t deserve the Pulitzer for Public Service.
Breaking News and Reporting
East Bay Times, Oakland, CA
For relentless coverage of the “Ghost Ship” fire, which killed 36 people at a warehouse party, and for reporting after the tragedy that exposed the city’s failure to take actions that might have prevented it.
You guys ever see the South Park episode with Captain Hindsight? That’s all they did. “The city should have done this and that and then 36 people wouldn’t have died.” Sounds like they’re just tattling on the City of Oakland for their gross negligence which cost a bunch of people their lives. Haven’t they ever heard of “snitches get stitches?” Now snitches get Pulitzers. We broke the news when Rachel Maddow broke the news of Trump’s tax return which turned out not to be news. I mean, so did the rest of the internet but whatever, we tried hard and gave a nice hot take.
Investigative Reporting
Eric Eyre of Charleston Gazette-Mail, Charleston, WV
For courageous reporting, performed in the face of powerful opposition, to expose the flood of opioids flowing into depressed West Virginia counties with the highest overdose death rates in the country.
You wanna hear about reporting in the face of powerful opposition? How about our very own Charles Maniego investigating the WWE’s bullying scandals. Who’s more powerful than Vince McMahon? That guy founded the XFL and got his head shaved by Donald Trump. Sure, our piece was posted the day before the award winners were announced, but if these Pulitzer people had their shit together they would have put some respeck on our name and at least named us finalists. What sounds more interesting, men in tights bullying each other, or a previously unknown drug epidemic killing hundreds of people in Middle America?
Explanatory Reporting
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and Miami Herald
For the Panama Papers, a series of stories using a collaboration of more than 300 reporters on six continents to expose the hidden infrastructure and global scale of offshore tax havens.
One day, when The Unbalanced is an international media empire, I will start some kind of shady business in which to invest my millions. Once that shady and illegal business starts turning a profit, I’m gonna need to hide my money from the IRS. Jordan Belfort was lucky. In the 90’s, if you had a bunch of dirty money you put it somewhere outside federal jurisdiction. Thanks to the Panama Papers, my dream of extorting billions of dollars that the government can’t touch will remain just a dream. Our boy Steven E. Smith has been explaining the true mysteries of the NHL in exquisite detail. He answers such questions as “why did Brad Marchand get suspended for slashing a guy in his man parts but Sidney Crosby didn’t?” and “what the fuck is XG and why are all these book-reading math nerds on Twitter talking about it?”
Criticism
Hilton Als of The New Yorker
For bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race.
Criticism is all we do. What is a “hot take?” The esteemed dictionary of TJ’s brain defines the hot take as “The art of the unpopular opinion, typically involving some sort of complaining/telling someone they suck at something or did something wrong.” I’ve never read any of Hilton Als’ critiques of stage dramas because I have no interest in Broadway. My only experience with musicals was seeing Wicked with my girlfriend and it sucked (it didn’t suck it was fucking awesome. I went out and bought an Elphaba costume afterwards and I wear it to bed every night.) I’ll take Brandon Daniel’s critique of Marvel’s Iron Fist over some Broadway geek write-up any day of the week.
Here’s a message for these Pulitzer Prize people- we don’t even want your stupid coin thing. We do sports and stuff, we used to cram dorks like you into lockers back in high school. Now look at us, we write blogs about how we should have won your awards and you just have your stupid internationally renowned awards for spectacular achievements. Good luck trying to convince us to accept your awards when we run the table next year. Maybe cough up some dough that I can bury in an untaxable account in Switzerland and we’ll talk.
