Meyer Berger

Meyer "Mike" Berger (1 September 1898 - 8 February 1959) was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and columnist for The New York Times.^[1] Berger was known for his long running column "About New York" and for his history of the first 100 years of the New York Times. The Mike Berger award given annually by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism to a reporter for outstanding local reporting is named after him.^[2]

Early life

Meyer Berger was born in New York City on 1 September 1898, the son of a Czechoslovakian immigrant father and a storekeeper mother. Sometime after his birth, the family moved from the Lower East Side to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Berger dropped out of school for financial reasons and became a messenger for a newspaper, The New York World. During World War I, Berger fought with the 106th Infantry, 26th Division and was awarded a Purple Heart and the Silver Star. In 1928, Berger joined the staff of the New York Times, where, except for a short stint at The New Yorker, he worked until his death in 1959.^[1]

At The Times

Berger soon became the top color writer at The Times^[3] writing mostly on local matters including murders, the mob, and the 1939 New York World's Fair.^[1] Known for his use of detail and color, Berger's pieces were often used in other media. One piece, a report on the first wounded soldiers returning from Europe during World War II became a radio script while another became a documentary.^[4] In 1939, he began the "About New York" column in the Times. His history of The Times, The Story of the New York Times 1851-1951 was published and a collection of his About New York columns were published posthumously (edited by Pete Hamill) in 1960.^[1] Berger is also the author of The Eight Million, a book about New York.^[4]

The Pulitzer

In 1950, Berger was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for "a distinguished example of local reporting" "prepared under the pressure of edition time". The cited story was for his account of the rampage of the serial killer, Howard Unruh, in Camden, New Jersey on 6 September 1949. Unruh, a 28 year old veteran of the second world war, killed 13 people and wounded several others and was arrested after a police standoff at his apartment in Camden.^[5] For the report, Berger retraced Unruh's steps interviewing 50 witnesses. The resulting 4,000 word piece, prepared and typed by Berger in two and a half hours, was published unedited in the newspaper the next morning. In a little known detail, Berger donated the $1,000 pulitzer prize money to Unruh's mother.^[1]

Legacy

Berger is often cited as one of the best American journalists^[6][3] and many of his reports, the pulitzer prize winning one and another piece on the arrival of the first set of coffins from Europe after the war in particular, are considered to be the best examples of color reporting, as is the baseball poetry he wrote on the error that cost the Brooklyn Dodgers the 4th game of the 1941 World Series.^[6][7] The Meyer Berger award for outstanding local journalists is considered to be one of the most prestigious by New York journalists.^[8]

See also

• Berger's Pulitzer Prize winning report

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} "MEYER BERGER, 60, OF TIMES IS DEAD; Reporter Got Pulitzer Prize In '50 -- Covered Trials and Gangs in Prohibition Era WROTE OF CITY'S FOLK Master of Human-Interest Story Conducted 'About New York' Column". The New York Times. 9 February 1959. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0D12FE3B5A137B93CBA91789D85F4D8585F9&scp=9&sq=%22Meyer+Berger%22&st=p. 
2. ^ http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/page/171-mike-berger-award/172
3. ^ ^{a b} http://www.greatreporters.co.uk/reportersmberger.htm
4. ^ ^{a b} "Sketches of the Pulitzer Prize Winners in Journalism, Letters and Music for 1950; "South Pacific"". The New York Times. 2 May 1950. pp. 22. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F7081FF8385F177A93C0A9178ED85F448585F9. 
5. ^ Parke, Richard (2 May 1950). "'SOUTH PACIFIC' WINS 1950 PULITZER PRIZE; 'The Way West' Ruled Best Novel--Berger of The Times Gets Reporting Award". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70D11F8385F177A93C0A9178ED85F448585F9. 
6. ^ ^{a b} http://www.laurajames.com/clews/2005/05/legends_of_true_2.html
7. ^ http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_case5.shtml
8. ^ Murray Kempton, the pulitzer prize winning Newsday reporter is said to have expressed disappointment that he had never one 'the Berger' because "the Pulitzer is named for a publisher,” but “The Meyer Berger is named for a reporter!"[1]