Chatting with Charlie*

L.A. Times editor John Carroll is set to be on with Charlie Rose tonight, along with Pulitzer-winning foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid of the Washington Post (from Iraq) and playwright Tom Stoppard.

* Behind the Pulitzer scenes: The Providence Journal feels it got robbed, and Slate's Jack Shafer argues the prizes story should never be on page one:

As a judge of other, lesser journalistic contests, I can tell you that it's a good thing the winners are chosen in private rather than under the scrutiny of C-SPAN's cameras. There's no real science or even fairness behind the picking of winners and losers, with the prizes handed out according to a formula composed of one part log-rolling, two parts merit, three parts "we owe him one," and four parts random distribution. That the Los Angeles Times brought home five Pulitzers to the New York Times' one this year doesn't mean it's five times the paper. It's a matter of the constellations aligning themselves perfectly in the Los Angeles Times' favor. If the paper gets shut out next year, nobody will accuse it of having lost its edge.

And: Carroll tells the New York Observer, "We don’t have any illusions about dominating any conversations, but we want to be part of the national conversation."