WASHINGTON, April 15 1981: The Washington Post said today that an article it printed about the life of an 8-year-old heroin addict in the slums of Washington, for which the author won a Pulitzer Prize this week, was a fabrication.
The newspaper said that it was relinquishing the award and that Janet Cooke, the 26-year-old reporter who wrote the story, had resigned. The paper said that after questioning by Post editors, she confessed at 1:45 this morning that her eyewitness account of ”Jimmy,” a precocious child with ”needle marks freckling the babysmooth skin of his thin brown arms,” was false.
It was the first time in the 64-year history of the coveted prizes that an award had been declined for such a reason, according to officials of the Pulitzer Committee at Columbia University in New York. Three years ago, a photograph was inadvertently credited to the wrong photographer and the award was changed.
After The Post’s announcement today, the 17-member Pulitzer board – which reviews jury recommendations for prizes – was polled by telephone from New York. The board awarded the prize for feature writing to Teresa Carpenter of The Village Voice for her reports on three murders. The jury had originally recommended the Carpenter stories for the prize, but had been overruled by the board.
Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of The Post, met with his paper’s news staff this afternoon and said he had sent a telegram to the Pulitzer board stating ”with great sadness and regret” that Miss Cooke had determined she could not accept the award.
”She told Post editors early this morning that her story – about an 8-year-old heroin addict – was in fact a composite, that the quotes attributed to a child were fabricated and that certain events described as eyewitnessed did not in fact happen,” the telegram said.
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