BOSTON GLOBE’S MARK FEENEY WINS 2008 PULITZER FOR CRITICISM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


CONTACT:   
Al Larkin
Executive Vice President
617-929-3160   
larkin@globe.com

Boston, MA, 2008-04-07 - Mark Feeney, a veteran editor, writer and critic for the Boston Globe was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism today for his writings on visual culture. It was his first Pulitzer and the newspaper’s twentieth.

In making the award, the Pulitzer judges said Feeney was recognized “for his penetrating and versatile command of the visual arts, from film and photography to painting.”

His entry comprised an eclectic collection of articles including a look at an Edward Hopper retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, his review of a documentary on photographer Annie Liebovitz that aired on WGBH as part of its “American Masters” series and an examination of the career of actress Barbara Stanwyck on what would have been her 100th birthday.

During newsroom ceremonies following the announcement, Feeney said he believed the award was to be shared by all of those at the newspaper “because we are all in this together.” In a lighter moment, he remarked that in previous years he has been assigned to write the story about that year’s Pulitzer winner.

“I can’t think of a better way of getting out of that assignment,” he joked.
 
Globe editor Martin Baron said Feeney’s “erudition, his eloquence, his extraordinary range have long made Mark one of the Globe’s greatest assets… Whether the subject is photography, or television documentaries, or film, or painting, he has a masterful way of connecting ordinary readers to extraordinary works, placing them smartly in the context of both history and contemporary culture.”

Feeney, 50, joined the Globe as a library researcher in 1979 after graduation from Harvard College and a year later began writing for the newspaper’s book review section. He has held a variety of positions at the Globe, including book editor and editor of the Sunday Focus section and is currently a writer and editor in the newspaper’s Arts section.

An astute observer of the arts and cultural genre, Mr. Feeney’s work has appeared in The New Republic, Commonweal, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Harper’s, The American Scholar, the New York Observer and The Washington Monthly. He is the author of Nixon at the Movies (University of Chicago Press), published in 2004, about former President Richard M. Nixon and popular culture.

Feeney has been a lecturer in American Studies at Brandeis University since 2004 and in 2007 was Robbins Professor of Writing at Princeton University. In 1994, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer for his essay on Nixon entitled “Wingtips On The Beach.”

He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife and son.

In addition to Feeney, Globe reporter Beth Daley was a Pulitzer finalist this year for her series on climate change entitled “The 45th Parallel / Warming Where We Live.” Ms. Daley won first place in environmental writing in this year’s National Headliner Awards for that body of work.

Links to Mr. Fenney’s work and Ms. Daley’s series are available at www.boston.com.

The award is the twentieth Pulitzer that the newspaper has received since 1966. It is the fourth awarded to the newspaper since Mr. Baron was named editor in 2001.

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New England Media Group is an integrated media group consisting of The Boston Globe, Boston.com, GlobeDirect and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, owned by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), and the Company's investments in Metro Boston and New England Sports Ventures. The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) is a leading media company with 2007 revenues of $3.2 billion, and includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers, WQXR-FM and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.