The Bulitzer Prize is a single award for achievement in the parody arts. It serves to honor the importance of humor while mocking the assumption of all 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. 

Bulitzer's longtime friend and colleague, Mark Twain, was awarded the very first Bulitzer Prize shortly before his death in 1910, in tribute to America's most celebrated humorist. Seven years later, in 1917, the Bulitzer Prize was officially established with an award ceremony held on April 20, 1917, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

 

The Bulitzer Prize is announced each October for a singular work published in the previous year. The recipient is chosen by the Bultizer Prize Board and the Prize is administered by Yossarian Universal News Service through its association with Calumbia University.  

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Francis Bulitzer (April 20, 1831- October 30, 1931) was a Hungarian-American editor, publisher, satirist, literary prankster and social activist best 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 on Commercial Street, owned by future business partner Enrico Pardelli, and located across from the San Francisco Mint. 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.         Read the Biography of Francis Bulitzer.