PLEASE NOTE  

    Due to Covid-19, The Bulitzer Prize, traditionally announced in April, will be awarded in December, 2020    

THE BULITZER PRIZE

Francis Bulitzer on his 90th birthday, April 20, 1921.

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Francis Bulitzer {ne Bolitzer, Ferenc}. April 20, 1831- October 30, 1931.

Hungarian-American editor, publisher, satirist, literary prankster, counterfeiter and social activist known for creating the annual Bulitzer Prize.  He is often considered one of the earliest progenitors of parody journalism. In 1854, he joined  the staff of The San Francisco Star, owned by future business partner Enrico Pardelli and conveniently located across from the San Francisco Mint on Commercial Street. In 1865, in the heart of the gold country, he launched The Columbia Epitaph, the nation's first daily newspaper devoted entirely to satirizing the news.    

The Bulitzer Prize is a single award for achievement in the parody arts. It serves to honor the importance of humor and mock thc pretense of competitive awards. It was first conceived  by Francis Bulitzer in 1909. Several  years later he initiated an endowment fund through the Bulitzer Prize Foundation, with a portion of his bequest to be used to found the Francis Bulitzer School of Parody Journalism. The school was endorsed and supported over the years by various writers, including H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker, and George S. Kaufman. 

As a farewell tribute to his longtime friend and colleague, Mark Twain, the first Bulitzer Prize was awarded to the great American humorist shortly before his death in 1910.  Seven years later in 1917, the Bulitzer Prize was officially established, with the award presented on April 20, 1917, at a ceremony held at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

The Bulitzer Prize is announced each April for work published in the previous year. The recipient is chosen by the Bultizer Prize Committee and the prize is administered by Yossarian Universal News Service.