FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Sabina Lee, [email protected] or (212) 854-5579
New York, N.Y. (May 4, 2015) – Paul Gigot, the editorial page editor and vice president of The Wall Street Journal, has been elected chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, Columbia University announced today.
Gigot succeeds Danielle Allen, a scholar and author who is the incoming director of the Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. The Pulitzer Board chairmanship is a one-year appointment. Board members serve a maximum of nine years.
Gigot’s career at The Wall Street Journal spans 35 years. He has held his current position since 2001. He is responsible for the newspaper's editorials, op-ed articles, arts criticism and book reviews. He also directs the editorial pages of the Journal's Asian and European editions and the OpinionJournal.com website. He is the host of the weekly half-hour news program, the Journal Editorial Report, on the Fox News Channel.
Gigot joined the Journal in 1980 as a reporter in Chicago. He became the Journal’s Asia correspondent in 1982, based in Hong Kong. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his reporting on the Philippines. In 1984, he was named the first editorial page editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. In 1987, he was assigned to Washington, where he contributed editorials and a weekly column on politics, “Potomac Watch,” which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
The Pulitzer Prizes, which are administered at Columbia University, were established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the School of Journalism in 1912 and establish the Pulitzer Prizes, which were first awarded in 1917.
The Pulitzer Board is composed mainly of leading journalists or news executives from media outlets across the U.S., as well as five academics or persons in the arts. The dean of Columbia's journalism school and the administrator of the prizes are nonvoting members. The chair rotates annually to the most senior member or members. The board is self-perpetuating in the election of members. Voting members may serve three terms of three years for a total of nine years.