NEWS AND VIEWS: Ukrainian professionals announce "Walter Duranty Foolitzer Prize" (07/06/03)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Ukrainian professionals announce "Walter Duranty Foolitzer Prize"

by Dr. Jaroslaw Sawka

The Ukrainian American-Canadian Professional Association, a.k.a. the Ukrainian Graduates of Detroit/Windsor, has announced that it will be instituting an annual journalistic award called the "Walter Duranty Foolitzer Prize" to the author of the most biased, disinforming, misinforming or the most anti-Ukrainian hatemongering work of journalism. Unfortunately, even in these times of a free and independent Ukrainian nation there is no abatement to the outpouring of journalistic-type garbage concerning Ukraine and Ukrainians. It didn't stop with the settlement in CBS's infamous "60 Minutes" segment "The Ugly Face of Freedom." Some of this year's contenders for the prize will be: Robert D. Kaplan for his article, "Euphorias of Hatred," May 2003, The Atlantic Monthly, (see the review by Dr. Myron Kuropas in The Ukrainian Weekly of April 20) and Sol Littman for his book, "Pure Soldiers or Bloodthirsty Murderers: The Ukrainian 14th Waffen-SS Division." There are plenty of other worthy contenders and the year 2003 still has enough time left to make for an interesting contest.

The sponsoring group's concern is not confined to mere commercial journalism. Of even more importance is the content of what is being propagated in academia. A case in point is the book "Political Culture and National Identity in Russian-Ukrainian Relations" by Prof. Mikhail Molchanov published by the Texas A & M University Press at taxpayer expense and subsidy.

Dr. Bohdan Vitvitsky is correct in taking Prof. Molchanov to task for his misinformation (April 6 The Ukrainian Weekly). Although the book was published in 2002, Prof. Molchanov is eligible for the Duranty prize because the debate he has generated is still raging in print well into this year. In his "scholarly" work he relies on outright Communist propaganda (see his bibliography) to discredit Ukrainian freedom fighters.

Unlike Mr. Duranty, Prof. Molchanov admits there was a famine but denies it was genocidal. For this he relies on the book, "Is the Holocaust Unique?" by Alan Rosenbaum, Westview Press, 1996, where we find such gems as this on pp. 30-31: "demographic data indicate that fewer than 760,000 children died, largely from starvation, between 1932-1934 ... 66.5 percent of Ukrainian children at a minimum survived ... This historical outcome regarding the children is not trivial. What makes the Ukrainian case non-genocidal, and what makes it different form the Holocaust, is the fact that the majority of Ukrainian children survived and, still more, they were permitted to survive."

The nominated work must be in the English language as an article, or book or an audio-video endeavor that has reached a wide non-Ukrainian audience. Everyone is invited to send nominations. The person submitting the winning nomination will receive a $100 honorarium. The "winning" author will receive a certificate and a monetary award of 2 pennies. The winners will be selected and announced by a special committee that will meet each year during the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Nominations are for the year prior. The meeting in January 2004 will pick the winner of a journalistic work produced in 2003.

None of this is intended to make anyone rich. The $100 nomination award is merely intended to stimulate readers or viewers to forward materials they may encounter that would warrant recognition via a Duranty prize. This is intended to encourage the competitive effect of having our community scour the media actively looking for anti-Ukrainian bias or disinformation. The winner will be determined by earliest postmarked letter until the award committee can devise a computerized system that would be fair. To recap and clarify: there will actually be two winners each year. The Nomination Award ($100) for the person nominating the winner of the Duranty prize and the journalist/author who actually wins the Duranty prize (2 cents).

The journalist receiving the Walter Duranty Foolitzer Prize will be notified that he/she is considered to be in a category worthy of Walter Duranty. That should be punishment enough. The 2 cents is intended to make this a "monetary" award and not just a certificate worthy of the winner's talents.

Copies of published materials must be sent in with the nomination; broadcast may be considered for the prize if accompanied or corroborated by an authentic transcript.

The idea for the presentation of this award has been prompted by the recent activity by many who feel that the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Duranty should be withdrawn because it was based on propaganda and outright lies, and that it resulted in incalculable damage to the Ukrainian people and their struggle for dignity and freedom.

It is not known whether the members of the Pulitzer Prize committee have enough honor or pride to ensure the integrity of their award. The tarnish on their prize is their problem. (If they don't want to clean it, so be it.) However, the Ukrainian Graduates of Detroit/Windsor know what they have to do. They have carefully picked the name "Foolitzer" so as to avoid confusion with the currently disgraced "Pulitzer." Theirs will be an untarnished, honorable, pure and noble award which should unintentionally cause shame, envy, gnashing of teeth, wringing of hands and awe to the disgraced members of the Pulitzer Prize committee.

The award committee still hasn't decided (intense internal debate) whether to throw in a Stalin Apologist Literary Prize and/or a Lenin Literary Prize (an intense internal debate is onoing). These would carry no monetary value (not even a penny) and would be strictly "symbolic."

Community support is requested in the form of sending in nominations; donations also would be appreciated. The association's address is: Ukrainian Graduates of Detroit-Windsor, P.O. Box 92415, Warren, MI 48092. (The group also publishes a Ukrainian Graduates newsletter, available for $10 per year; the newsletter is free to members.)

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