E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
David Friedman / msnbc.com
An ad on trains in the New York City area promotes Bloomberg Television anchor Betty Liu as a Pulitzer Prize nominee, which she is not. Her publisher made the same claim on the cover of her book.
NEW YORK — Bloomberg Television has a new ad campaign in the New York City area, touting the journalistic credentials of its morning anchor, Betty Liu.
"PULITZER PRIZE-NOMINATED," the ads shout at commuters on trains in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. "HAS ALL THE HEAVY HITTERS ON SPEED DIAL. AND THAT'S JUST THE ANCHOR."
The only problem is that Liu has never been Pulitzer-nominated. The Pulitzer Prizes don't list her among the nominees for any year.
When asked by msnbc.com about the discrepancy, Bloomberg TV said the ads are wrong and will be corrected.
It turns out that Liu is another example of a Pulitzer entrant — not a finalist or nominee — who routinely lists the word "Pulitzer" in her bio anyway. Like conservative author Jonah Goldberg, whose false claim on the cover of his book was described in this space last month, Liu was just one of thousands of entrants whose work was left on the floor at the end of the judging.
When Liu was a reporter for The Financial Times in Atlanta in 2000, Bloomberg said, the newspaper submitted her work to the Pulitzer committee. To call that submission a Pulitzer "nomination" is like saying that Adam Sandler is an Oscar nominee if Columbia Pictures enters "That's My Boy" in the Academy Awards. Many readers would realize that the Oscars don't work that way — the studios don't pick the nominees. It's just a way of slipping "Academy Awards" into a bio. The Pulitzers also don't work that way, but fewer people know that.
Journalist declines to answer questions
Liu, known for her interviews of Warren Buffett, Jack Welch and other CEOs, did not respond to requests for an interview about her biography. She hosts the show "In the Loop with Betty Liu" on Bloomberg TV, which is owned by Bloomberg L.P., whose majority owner is the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.
A Bloomberg L.P. spokeswoman, Jocelyn Austin, declined to discuss the ads on the record, but later sent a statement:
"You are right. Thanks for catching it. An innocent mistake was made by our marketing folks who did not fully understand that while Betty was entered for a Pulitzer Prize by the Financial Times in 2000 for her series of articles on immigrant labor in the South, this does not make her 'Pulitzer Prize-nominated.' As soon as you pointed it out we realized it was wrong and are correcting those ads."
Same claim made before
This is not the first time the P word has appeared in Liu's biography.
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg Television anchor Betty Liu. The claim of a Pulitzer nomination was previously made on the cover of her book, and in promotional material for a Bloomberg event with experts in municipal finance.
Her publisher, Pearson Prentice Hall, made the same claim on the jacket of her book, "Age Smart: Discovering the Fountain of Youth at Midlife and Beyond." The book claims, "Ms. Liu was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 by the editors of The Financial Times."
Last year, a Bloomberg bio of Liu cited her "Pulitzer nomination." In promoting an event on state and municipal finance, where members of the public could pay to meet with industry leaders and Bloomberg journalists, the claim was: "Betty Liu is also a recipient of The Dow Jones Newswires Award and a Pulitzer Prize nomination."
The Bloomberg spokeswoman, Austin, declined to say whether Liu saw the ad copy before it went up on trains throughout the metro area.
Entrants, not nominees
Here's background on how the Pulitzer process works, from our previous report on Jonah Goldberg:
It's not uncommon for Pulitzer entrants to make a false claim to be nominees. Here's how it works: Though there are only three nominees, known as nominated finalists, in each Pulitzer category each year, there are more than 2,000 entrants. One could say that all of them were "nominated" by someone. If all Pulitzer entrants could be called nominees, any publisher could give all its authors that honorific by submitting an entry form and a check for $50.
The Pulitzer rules make clear that the only people to be known as nominees are those finalists chosen by the Pulitzer juries. From those nominated finalists, the Pulitzer board chooses the winners. Everyone else is just an entrant. As the Pulitzer board's online list of frequently asked questions explains politely, "Work that has been submitted for Prize consideration but not chosen as either a nominated finalist or a winner is termed an entry or submission. ... We discourage someone saying he or she was 'nominated' for a Pulitzer simply because an entry was sent to us."
In addition to misleading the public, such false claims rob honor from the actual nominees. This year's non-winning nominees include journalists and authors revealing failure to enforce safety standards at aging nuclear power plants, exploring the heartache of dealing with a sick spouse, and capturing in photographs the chaos and exuberance of the Arab Spring.
Being a "two-time Pulitzer Prize entrant" won't sell many books. Claims to Pulitzer nominations have showed up in the bios of well-known sportswriters Bill Plaschke and Buster Olney, NPR host Michele Norris and others not listed on the Pulitzer site, including a good number of university professors.
Leave a Comment:
Me too- Maybe it's because we didn't pay the $50. Hmmmm.....
Now, who trust Ms. Lui to do their fact checking?
Blomberg's advertising is as misleading and inaccurate as their 'biased polls' are.... neither should be trusted!
Wow, someone lying to forward her career. But she looks pretty. Isn't our current social motto, "It's what is shallow and on the outside that counts?"
This is NOT how Katie Couric got her big break. But nice try!
Too funny!!!!!!!!!!!
I follow your blog and get that you are proud that you won a Pulitzer. I was just a bit confused on this one and thought I knew what "nominate" meant - so I did some investigative stuff with a quick Google search and found BOTH of you are right (but still not sure anyone cares :-)
nominate/ˈnäməˌnāt/
Verb: Propose or formally enter as a candidate for election or for an honor or award.
Synonyms: appoint - name - designate – assign
This is not up to your usual standards of investigative journalism Bill - give me something we all actually care about and makes a difference
Thanks
Thanks for your comment, John.
I wasn't the only one to spot this false advertising on trains in New York. There are a lot of Pulitzer fakers out there -- see Wikipedia -- and I don't plan to make a career from outing them, but when they're advertising, it's worth noting.
You can cite a dictionary definition of "nominate," but it's still misleading: If you tell people you're an Academy Awards nominee, that has a meaning: finalist. The Pulitzers work in exactly the same way. If you advertise that you're "Pulitzer-nominated," and you're merely an entrant, you're misleading the public.
Again, thanks for your comment.
"Misleading the public" is a scary thought when she is supposed to EDUCATE the public!!! Makes you question her rise to the anchor position.
How is a person submitted for a Pulitzer? Is it something you do yourself or is it typically done by a peer?
Skup, employers normally send in an entry. But one can send in an entry oneself, and a couple of times in recent years those entrants have won. Perhaps more than those two have been nominees, or finalists.
Wow! I'll be back next week with my 15 Pulitzer nominations. psst! You need some Pulitzer-nominated articles for your web site? Reasonably priced, my friend.
This bull$h!t reeks of Clinton's "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
This is just MSDNC word games used to dishonestly smear anyone that doesn't buy into their left-wing ideology. It sounds like something straight out of the Democratic National Headquarters.
It's dishonest. It's slimey. It's typically NBC.
This is just a right wing smear attempt.
Just ask senator Blumenthal of Connecticut.
The righties tried to smear him when he said during his 2010 campaign that he was a Vietnam Vet which he later acknowledged was not accurate but only the result of a few misplaced words.
I take it that this was an attempt at sarcasm and a thinly veiled jab at liberals. Not well done and completely out of place.
Nonetheless, the reference is, indeed, factual.
factual but misleading and willfully at that.
Misleading?
Presumably because you cannot handle the fact / truth.
These days, when expediency is the order of the day, all is forgiven if inaccuracies, when uncovered, are dismissed as no big deal
And, nonetheless, still completely irrelevant to this story. Not everything has to have a link to politics and conspiracy theories. The world doesn't have to be as dark as you try to make it.
I'm sure Bill Dedman will love to know he has officially been designated a "right winger"...
The point is not the specifics of this story.
The point is the way we are expected to accept as "truth" anything thrown at us by those who should normally be relied upon to tell the truth.
When irregularities such as this surface, " I'm sorry I got caught" is supposed to be enough.
Nothing new - The point is your name says it all. It's the same ol' stuff of turning anything you can into a jab at liberals. Nothing new here.
Pulitzers only have prize winners. They do not have or release "nominations" or "finalists." No such thing. Just because you apply for a prize does not in any way deem you qualified for the prize. This is a gross error. These people loose credibility by their lies on resumes.
Rick, Thanks for your comment. Actually, the Pulitzers do release the list of nominated finalists. They're not released before the awards, but are released at the same time as the winners are named. You can see the lists, or search, at Pulitzer.org.
I've never seen an article before where the author actually repsonds to the comments! I think this is great! It will squash all the misinformation in the comments when the person who actually did the research can clear up the misunderstanding.
Thank you Bill Dedman!
Thanks, Kikster. I try to get onto the comments early and often. It doesn't pay to argue with people, but providing a fact can help. Thanks for your comment.
I suspect the employer's PR Department had much more to do with this than Betty Liu. Her employer in Atlanta who made the nomination may have told her to put it on her resume and Bloomberg News PR Dept. may have run the ad campaign without her full knowledge. I have seen her performance on Bloomberg TV for several years and she is an outstanding news journalist/anchor. In the financial world where so many of the people being interviewed are spin doctors (with their financial gain at stake) she does an excellent job of bringing out the real story. Kudos to her. She should win an award. And I have never had any relationship whatsoever with Betty Liu or Bloomberg TV.
I think that there are much worse examples of wrong doing by members of the media such as the plagiarism by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times or Sara Ganim who violated journalistic ethics by telling the mother of a child who alleged sex abuse how to report the allegations so that she could write a story about it. (N.B. Ganim actually did get a Pulitzer Prize for the story.)
I am the editor of my resume, no one else.
How can you trust the integrity of a "Journalist" that lies about their resume? She is just another pretty face with a good degree. If she was worth watching, they would not have needed the marketing fluff. Will the real Journalist please stand up....
So typical and predictable. Another left-wing liar and hypocrite - is this really a surprise to anyone?
hahahaha....typical conservative calling everyone else exactly what they are and how they operate. It is the right that has earned the moniker of hypocrite...or haven't you been paying attention...as usual?
Actually, the comment posted was the first comment posted under this article, which was the link this story gave to cover author Jonah Goldberg, whose false claim on the cover of his book was described in this space last month.
The same article quoted in this story.
I gave up on "journalists" as I watched the footage taken of victims of an airline crash struggle to remain alive in the river they'd crashed into. My thought was "put down the camera and microphone" and actually DO SOMETHING to help those people. (Air Florida flight 90, January 1982). I just knew the thought going through the cameraman's head was "Pulitzer! Pulitzer!"
I gave up on Bloomberg pretty much from day 1 of his election. So happy I don't live in his version of NYC.
The difference between Journalists, Weathermen, Politicians, Clergymen, Lawyers, Doctors, Judges, Researchers, Corporate Executives, Bankers, Regulators, Teachers, Firefighters, Policemen, on and on and on is where they are standing and what they are wearing when they lie!
For the life of me, I just can't recall to many lying firefighters. Actually I'm 60 years old and can't remember anyone in the fire fighting business lying about anything in public. The musician Dr. John once said that he didn't trust careers that started with the letter 'P'... Priests, politicians, police. He went on to say he called prcstitutes whcres because he felt that they had higher standards.
Journalism is full of people who are nothing more than lying, deceitful and misleading pieces of dung. There is no credibility in so-called journalism nowadays. it's pathetic, at best.
Another fine example of the Liberal media and the blatant lies that they try to push on the American People.
Hey Doomberg, wake up and smell the election this Nov. Your side continues to CRUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!
Journalist's are supposed to report the news...now they create the news.
I'm always amazed by how deeply the wingnuts understand everything. How do they know this woman is one of "them libtards"? And how did they handle the fact that Jonah Goldberg did the same kind of resume-padding? It requires deep insight to intuit that a business news service run by a plutocrat ios part of that mythical "liberal media."
If I got caught lying on my resume I'd lose my job.
Yep. She should lose her job!
Is this bloomberg dude related to the NYC mayor?
Just a little bit. He is the New York city mayer.
It's sad to say this but it's true, politicians, news reporters, so called leaders are more an more reporting untruths in the headlines, front page!, people read the lies and most people believe the written word for some strange reason, when untruths are called out and proven false, then a rewrite is written and posted in small type in the middle of the news where it's not easily found, so the out come is most of the people who read the first article (the false what ever) still believe the lie that was written cause they don't bother to read the whole paper, an the publisher doesn't announce at loud that the rewrite is in a certain place. sneaky @!$%#ers
That's the reason Obama gets away with all his bull @!$%# is most people aren't going to check him out, or their too gullible, or they are in cahoots with him. If you have any, any! experience at dealing with dishonest politicians, or dishonest car sales men, or dishonest policy sales men, you should know when you are being scammed or lied to.
OMG. Somebody on the Tee Vee Lied !!!! Wake Up. Politicians Tell Lies. The Media tells Lies.
Every Corporation in the World tells Lies. Getting Caught is Just More Free Advertising.
The Next Lie they Tell is "It's OK Because Everyone Does It".
Does ANYONE really Not Understand Why this country is SOOOOOO Screwed Up ?
Comment # 29
There is a reason that most writers do not make the cut. This is one of the reasons. Someone can't tell the difference between what is real and what is made up. I wouldn't vote for her now if she reported the day of the week correctly. To keep it clean and honest, the cut has to be of very high standards. Thank You MSN for the account of facts. You managed to get it right this time.
-30-
Connotation- denotation- tomato-potato.
Something tells me she has killed any chance to ever become a pulitzer prize winner...just saying!
Bill, I really think you and many of the commenters here are completely wrong on this one. John D. above is right in his post about what "nominate" means. If a major paper like the Wall Street Journal, NY Times or FT enters your story in the Pulitzer contest--over stories by many other staffers at the paper--then your paper has clearly "nominated" you. It is very big honor to have your story as one of the official entries from such a paper--you've beaten out many other excellent stories--and there is no doubt your paper has nominated you. That's often the language the paper uses when winnowing down the potential entrants to send to the Pulitzer folks. The Pulitzer board can warn all it wants against using the word "nominate" and to use "enter" instead, but it doesn't control the language. What good journalist takes the PR language without question? The stories are clearly nominated.
Betty Liu is an excellent journalist who's had a long career at Dow Jones, the FT and now Bloomberg, and your story and many of the comments here have really maligned her. I really think you owe her an apology.
John, thanks for your comment.
If you put in your bio or on your resume or CV that you were a nominee for employee of the year, everyone will know what that means: You were selected as one of the final few. Meryl Streep is an umpteen-time Oscar nominee because she made the finals that many times, not because her studio paid $100 to send in her films that many times.
It works that way at the Academy Awards, at the Grammys, at the state fair pie baking contest, at the Southeastern Conference football player of the week. That's the common understanding of what it means. (Not to mention, it's what the Pulitzer Prizes board says it means. More important here is the layman's understanding, but note that they are identical. You've phrased it as though the Pulitzer language is some kind of PR mind game, when in fact the Pulitzer way of saying it is exactly the way the layman understands it.)
When Betty Liu goes to an industry meeting, or sells a book, or charges admission to the public where they can meet with industry insiders and Bloomberg journalists (??), and her bio says she's a Pulitzer nominee, she and her employer and publisher are letting everyone know that she has that word associated with her name.
If she's not a nominee, but says she's a Pulitzer nominee, it's misleading.
As a journalism colleague said recently, Hell, by that standard nearly everyone in every newsroom I've ever worked in is a prize nominee. It's like saying you interviewed "a source close to the White House" when you interviewed the popcorn vendor on 16th Street. It's a dodge.
If what she means to say is that her previous employer liked her work so much that it chose her as one of the (sometimes dozens -- remember, papers don't even have to pick and choose which staff to enter, but can and often do enter several staffers per category in the more than dozen categories) of entries that it sent in that year, to be judged along with thousands of others from other news organizations, then she should say that: The Financial Times submitted my work for a Pulitzer, but I wasn't chosen as a nominee, but still I consider it a great honor, then she should say that.
As I say in the story, there is a lot of Pulitzer-nominee fakery out there. Ms. Liu unfortunately attracted attention because her loose claim, which she had made before, was picked up by the network in an ad campaign.
Bill Dedman
You are correct and the public and the Pulitzer committee should thank you for picking up on it and getting it corrected. Bloomberg TV agreed to remove the claim. However, since we do not know Ms. Liu's explaination of her actions, the story is still ex parte and we do not know if she acted with mens rhea (a guilty intent). It is possible that she was not aware of the distinction being made when she committed the error. According to your note apparently many people also do not. In any event, with or without Pulitzer nominations, Ms. Liu does an outstanding job of reporting the financial news.
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. Betty Liu was nominated by the FT for a Pulitzer. The FT chose her over many of her colleagues and nominated her for the prize in her category. She was an FT nominee. That would be the straightforward, layman’s understanding of the term and it’s perfectly fair to use it that way. Betty is not misleading anyone when she says she’s a Pulitzer nominee because she is. Now the Pulitzer board may not like the use of that term but they don’t have to right control the language and decide that words don’t mean what they do. And there’s no confusion with this because everyone calls the Pulitzer finalists “finalists,” (not nominees) even though we learned from your story that the Pulitzer committee likes to call them “nominated finalists.”
When a panel of editors at a large institution like the FT, WSJ or NY Times sifts through hundreds of stories from the past year and decides that your story should go to the Pulitzer committee, they you’ve been nominated. If the panel rules against you then your paper generally wouldn’t allow you to enter; you have not been nominated. Of course, on small papers without a formal process, reporters will enter their own stories; you would be right to say those stories were not nominated. And you’re probably right about Jonah Goldberg—he probably sent in his books himself. But in this case we’re talking about a reporter who clearly was nominated. So I don’t think there is any Pulitzer fakery or any loose claims here.
I guess my main objection is that with sentences like ‘This is not the first time the P word has appeared in Liu's biography,’ you give the story this whole investigative air that something wrong has happened when in the end it’s only that you have a different sense of what the word ‘nominee’ means than other people. Where’s William Safire when you need him?!
Trying to be as shallow as I can be. While Betty Liu, may not have been nominated for the Pulitzer, She sure is a good looking gal. About Bill Dedman jumping back in with the comments...Yeah I like that. I think John Koppisch is wrong, nominate is what the Pulitzer folks says it is.