On journalistic authority: The Janet Cooke scandal

In 1981 a Pulitzer Prize for journalism was forfeited for the first time in the history of the award. Janet Cooke, a young, black reporter for the Washington Post, returned her prize for feature writing after it was discovered that the subject of her prize‐winning story, an eight‐year‐old heroin‐user, was a fabrication. Journalists used the occasion of the Cooke scandal to reflect on changes that had occurred in their field since the 1960s. Janet Cooke symbolized, on the one hand issues related to the increased presence of minorities in the profession, and, on the other, changes in reporting routines and conventions. She was a vehicle for journalists to consider the contradictions of their own authority, contradictions that since the 1960s have become increasingly visible.