近期2010年普利策奖（Pulitzer Prizes）揭开了帷幕。全球的焦点又一次聚焦到了美国，大家都好奇今年又是那家媒体获得了大奖，又有哪些震撼人心灵的图片获得了殊荣。这里小翻译一下普利策说过的一段话再引用以他名字创立的普利策奖简介。供大家共勉。

In May 1904, writing in  The North American Review in support of his proposal for the founding of a school of journalism, Pulitzer summarized his credo: "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations."

1904年五月，为了支持自己筹建新闻学院的计划，普利策在北美评论杂志（NAR）发文总结了自己的人生信条：“我们的共和国和她的新闻媒体共存亡。一个有能力的、公正的、有公德心的新闻媒体能够有足够的智慧去发现真理而且会有勇气做下去。能在虚假和徒劳无功的政府之外保护社会公德。一个愤世嫉俗、唯利是图、蛊惑人心的媒体能迅速制造出和它们一样的民众。铸造共和国将来的使命将会落在未来新闻工作者的手中。”

希望广大媒体人都秉着“为人民服务”的基本信条服务大众。今年两会温总也强调了“充分发挥新闻舆论的监督作用，让权力在阳光下运行”。尽管前方艰难险阻，希望广大媒体同仁还是要勇往直前。人民不指望你们，指望谁呢？

下边引用普利策奖官方网站关于普利策奖的简介：

In the latter years of the 19th century, Joseph Pulitzer stood out as the very embodiment of American journalism. Hungarian-born, an intense indomitable figure, Pulitzer was the most skillful of newspaper publishers, a passionate crusader against dishonest government, a fierce, hawk-like competitor who did not shrink from sensationalism in circulation struggles, and a visionary who richly endowed his profession.

His innovative New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reshaped newspaper journalism. Pulitzer was the first to call for the training of journalists at the university level in a school of journalism. And certainly, the lasting influence of the Pulitzer Prizes on journalism, literature, music, and drama is to be attributed to his visionary acumen.

Pulitzer's Flexible Will

In writing his 1904 will, which made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence, Pulitzer specified solely four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one for education, and four traveling scholarships. In letters, prizes were to go to an American novel, an original American play performed in New York, a book on the history of the United States, an American biography, and a history of public service by the press.

But, sensitive to the dynamic progression of his society, Pulitzer made provision for broad changes in the system of awards. He established an overseer advisory board and willed it "power in its discretion to suspend or to change any subject or subjects, substituting, however, others in their places, if in the judgment of the board such suspension, changes, or substitutions shall be conducive to the public good or rendered advisable by public necessities, or by reason of change of time." He also empowered the board to withhold any award where entries fell below its standards of excellence. The assignment of power to the board was such that it could also overrule the recommendations for awards made by the juries subsequently set up in each of the categories.

Since the inception of the prizes in 1917, the board, later renamed the Pulitzer Prize Board, has increased the number of awards to 21 and introduced poetry, music, and photography as subjects, while adhering to the spirit of the founder's will and its intent.