4.11.00
Pulitzer Prize Winner Paul Gigot

4.11.00
Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg

4.07.00
Writer Stephanie Gutmann

4.05.00
Hillsdale's Larry Arnn

4.04.00
Barry U.'s Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin

4.03.00
Senator Connie Mack

4.03.00
Yale's John Lott

3.28.00
Reform Party Chairman Pat Choate

3.24.00
Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly

3.20.00
Former Federal Prosecutor Barbara Olson

3.20.00
Yale's John Lott on Guns

3.17.00
Michael Novak

4/11/00 7:40 p.m.
Pulitzer Prize Winner Paul Gigot Says...
“It’s probably just right place, right time, right year."

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor------------lopezk@nationalreview.com

aul Gigot is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

National Review: Did this come as a complete surprise to you?

Paul Gigot: Well, considering the editorial page was 0 for 6 with finalists in the last 16 years, yes. I think [WSJ editor] Bob Bartley’s comment yesterday when he assembled with his staff was, “It’s about ‘blanking’ time!” I knew I was a finalist, but I had been a finalist once before too, so I hadn’t banked on it.

NR: How do you find out about these things?

Gigot: I didn’t realize it until I was a finalist the first time, but there’s sort of — a little bit like exit polls — everybody just kind of finds out. Somebody calls you up and says, “Did you know that … ” And I said, “No, I didn’t know that.”

NR: So, the gods don’t come down from Mt. Olympus and inform you?

Gigot: No, it’s not formal. It’s very much an informal thing. Your friends in journalism call you and say, “By the way, I hear you were a finalist.” Sooner or later, somebody really knows.

NR: I imagine it was a little more formal when the final word came down?

Gigot: Yeah. Bartley and Peter Kann [WSJ publisher] are both excruciatingly quiet. They didn’t tell me. Bartley just said you better come up Monday to New York, win or lose. And then he dodged me all Monday, so I’m thinking, “Oh, well, it’s bad news.” But then 3 o’clock, the announcement time, came and they were all sitting. They say, “Come on in.” So, I went into his office and we sat around and waited while the AP Wire came across the computer and then they could tell me.

NR: So, how long did he know before he could tell you?

Gigot: I don’t know. I suspect they knew on Friday. I will say this, that these guys keep secrets better than most government officials.

NR: Is this a milestone, obviously, not only for the paper and the WSJ op-ed page, but for conservative journalists?

Gigot: I doubt it. I think that Bartley won it in ’80. Charles Krauthammer won it in the ’80s, I think. George Will won it in the ’70s. William Safire won in the ’70s. Conservatives have won before, it’s just been a long time. There are an awful lot of people who deserve it and should have won it over the years, in particular, Dorothy Rabinowitz, who works for us, Daniel Henninger, who works for us. They’ve been finalists for us three times and two times, so … I think they should have won.

I don’t know. It’s probably just right place, right time, right year somehow. The kind of encouraging thing is that I had some pretty tough pieces on Clinton in there and one column was quite tough on Hillary.

NR: Did you win for your whole body of work for the year?

Gigot: It’s a specific submission — 10 pieces, 10 columns.

NR: And most of them were … ?

Gigot: It was a mix. If there was one theme, the theme was how the impeachment made character and biography the dominant election theme of the last year. There was an interview with Henry Hyde, the first interview he gave after the acquittal. There’s a couple of pieces on Bradley, and how he was using character against Gore. There’s a piece on Hillary. There’s a piece on Paul Weyrich and taking conservative pessimists to task in the wake of impeachment for saying it’s kind of [like the decline of] Rome and all that. There was a piece on McCain saying biography wasn’t enough; a piece on Quayle and Lamar.

NR: And you chose those?

Gigot: Yeah, I did. In about 15 minutes.

NR: Just because you knew right away which ones were right?

Gigot: No, I just sort of paged through them and they were the ones that seemed to make sense. Maybe because that was the biggest story last year and that’s what I wrote about. In a way the best thing about it is that the columns I submitted didn’t break type. They were pretty consistent with my whole body of work. Nobody’s going to say, “You know, he won it because he decided to bash conservatives.” I got it for doing what I do.

NR: What does one do after one wins the Pulitzer Prize? Does it change life any?

Gigot: It probably declines. I don’t know. It’s a-what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business, right? I’ll just have to keep knocking them out and wait for the inevitable observations: “You know, he’s really gone downhill since he won his Pulitzer.”

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