April 16–23, 1998

on media

Prize Fight

At a press conference in December, State Sen. Vince Fumo made it clear he didn't think the Inquirer deserved a Pulitzer Prize for its controversial series on the Board of City Trusts, the body that manages endowments left in the city's care and administers funds to Girard College.

Turns out he wasn't just blowing smoke.

On Monday, the New York Times revealed that Fumo, a member of the board, was one of at least five people to formally object this year to nominations for Pulitzers, journalism's top honor. Fumo aide Gary Tuma confirmed the report on Tuesday, saying the senator had submitted "a packet of information," including a 20-some-page letter, in which he challenged the premise of the Inquirer series—that Girard College had suffered due to the board's frugality, even while collecting handsome profits on investments.

"The overarching theme of the series was that by imposing a spending cap in 1992… the board disadvantaged students at Girard College," Tuma says. "That's simply not true."

The series, he adds, was "based on complete misunderstanding of trust management," and contained "several factual errors." All of this, he says, was laid out in detail for the Pulitzer judges.

This was not, however, an attempt to exact revenge for critical coverage: "[Fumo's] only objective was to make sure the Pulitzer committee had all the facts," Tuma says, "and then to let the chips fall where they may."

Jonathan Neumann, an Inquirer editor who worked with reporters Dan Stets and Marc Kaufmann on the series, says Fumo has complained before, in letters to the paper, but has never demonstrated the "factual errors" and "complete misunderstanding" he claims tainted the articles.

"It was entirely accurate and fair, and balanced throughout," Neumann says. "And the response [to the series from political and community leaders] speaks for itself.

"If that's the way Sen. Fumo wants to handle it, that's his right," says Neumann. "[But] it's the substance of the story that's important, and the substance of the story is and always has been that the Board of City Trusts was spending less and less on education… when it was making more and more [from its investments] because of this bull market.

"Anything else is taking your eyes off the ball."

As expected, the Inquirer did not win a Pulitzer for the series. Whether Fumo's intervention had anything to do with that isn't clear; Pulitzer committee administrator Seymour Topping could not be reached before press time.

-Frank Lewis