Creole-Tomato Finishes 37th in Pulitzer Voting, Resumes Publishing after Protest

After a period of protest following the announcement of the 2005 Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism, the Creole-Tomato resumed publishing today.

The protest began when cross-town rival paper The Times-Picayune was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes — journalism’s highest honor — for public service and breaking news.

“Everybody wants to slap the Times-Picayune on the back. Courageously riding out the storm, piling in the back of delivery trucks, blah, blah, blah,” said a co-editor of the Tomato who declined to be identified.

“We’re here too,” he continued. “And some of our correspondents are still living on boats.”

The Times-Picayune also won a gold medal for meritorious public service.

The gold medal for public service was awarded, the judges said, for the newspaper’s “heroic, multifaceted coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, making exceptional use of the newspaper’s resources to serve an inundated city even after evacuation of the newspaper plant.”

“I mean look at us,” commented the co-editor. “They’re back in their plant now, with paper and everything. We’re still publishing a rinky-dink website.

“So we just shut it down in protest.”

In a statement to readers, the staff of the Creole-Tomato said they decided to being publishing again because “we decided that the good people of New Orleans needed us too much.”

“And,” the statement continued, “because JazzFest kind of lightened the mood up a bit.”

“They’ve got enough Pulitzer metal to permanently dam Mister Go,” the anonymous co-editor said. “What do we get? Bubkus.”

“Who the hell is this Pulitzer guy, anyway? He doesn’t sound like he’s from here.”

He then added: “When do I get to go on Anderson Cooper?”