Severin's phony Pulitzer

OCCASIONAL LISTENERS to ''Extreme Games" on WTKK are accustomed to host Jay Severin admiring himself in the mirror of his own imagination, a glass so vast and glittering as to rival the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

But last Friday, the talkmaster positively outdid himself in setting new laurels upon his brow:

He awarded himself a Pulitzer Prize.

That came as part of a conversation with a caller about the declining standards he sees in journalism. Here's what Jay said: ''But since journalism began, and up until the time at least that I took my master's degree at Boston University -- and may I add without being obnoxious, up till and including the time that I received a Pulitzer Prize for my columns for excellence in online journalism from the Columbia School of Journalism, the highest possible award for writing on the Web -- right up to and including that in 1998, you still had to practice journalism to be a journalist."

That struck several listeners as unlikely. Once I'd heard the claim, I asked the Pulitzer folks to check it out. ''We looked at the records and there is no record of him winning a Pulitzer Prize," says Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzers. Nor is there a Pulitzer for excellence in online journalism.

How does Jay explain his assertion?

''What I said was, there is a prize that my editor told me is the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for Web journalism," Severin said in an interview. ''That is a hell of a caveat."

Certainly it would have been if Severin had made it. The problem is, he didn't. I read him his on-air comment.

''I certainly could have been more precise," he conceded. Or more, say, truthful.

Now to the matter of online awards. From 2000 to 2002, Columbia University was the cosponsor for the Online Journalism Awards, awards in no way related to the Pulitzers. According to Tom Regan, executive director of the Online News Association, there is only one annual Online Journalism Award that goes to an individual. It's for commentary. Severin hasn't won that, he said.

It is true that in 2000, the first year for which those awards were given, MSNBC.com won an Online Journalism Award for general excellence ''in collaboration," and Severin was writing columns for the site at the time. But that award ''is for the site as a whole," says Regan.

Severin, however, said that he had been told by Joan Connell, then executive producer for opinions at the site, that the prize he alluded to was for a small group of writers that included him. Connell, who is now with The Nation, says she's not even sure what award Severin has in mind. Asked about Severin's account, she says: ''I don't recall that. The awards we did win tended to be for sitewide excellence and not for the opinion sections."

Interesting, a Google search turns up two mentions of Severin winning a Pulitzer for online journalism. They come in student newspaper articles covering a November 2003 appearance at Boston College. ''Currently, Severin is a featured columnist on MSNBC.com, for which he has won the Pulitzer Prize for online journalism," The Heights reported. Severin ''was the first recipient of Columbia University's Pulitzer Prize for online journalism," the Observer wrote. Both accounts also call him a graduate of Harvard Law School. He is not, Harvard says.

Joelle Pederson, who wrote the story for the Heights, thinks the information about Severin came from the person who introduced him.

Now, where would anyone introducing Jay have gotten the notion that he was a Harvard Law School graduate?

''I have no idea," said Severin. But one quickly occurred to him. As part of an arrangement made by his BU professors, he said, he had sat in on some classes at Harvard Law School, though not as an enrolled student. Perhaps, he said, whoever introduced him had heard him mention those classes on the air and arrived at that conclusion.

That's inventive, anyway. But then, there's long been an aura of self-invention about Severin.

The young man known at Vassar as Jimmy Severino is now Jay Severin III. The former B-grade political consultant would have his listeners believe he was once a top-level national strategist.

So what can we conclude from this intriguing episode? Well, journalistic standards aren't the only thing in decline.

These days, Pulitzer Prize winners just aren't what they used to be, either.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.