`I'm Just The Messenger'
The Baltimore Sun's Lisa Pollak, who won a Pulitzer Prize this week, started her
career at The Detroit Jewish News.
LOUIS BERNEY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
T
he biggest story that jour-
nalist Lisn Pollak ever wrote
was a compelling account in
the Baltimore Sun last De-
cember of the family of Major
League umpire John Hirschbeck,
the man the Baltimore Orioles'
second baseman Roberto Alomar
so ignominiously spat upon.
So powerful was Ms. Pollak's
portrayal of how the Hirschbeck
family lost one son to adreno-
leukodystrophy (ALD), and then
had to face the devastation of an-
other son being afflicted by the
same deadly disease, that it won
her American journalism's great-
est honor — a Pulitzer Prize.
"It's overwhelming," the 27-
year-old reporter said of her 1996
Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writ-
ing, which was announced Mon-
day, April 8.
The first published article that
Ms. Pollak ever wrote may not
have won an award, but it's also
Louis Berney is a Baltimore
freelance writer.
memorable to her. It was a 1985
"It was really a big deal to me,"
article about a Tu B'Shevat tree . she said, one day after winning
planting ceremony in a Detroit the Pulitzer, of her opportunity to
suburb written for the The Detroit write for The Jewish News. Ini-
Jewish News, when Ms. Pol-
lak was a high-school senior.
"It was very exciting," Ms.
Pollak recalled of her jour-
nalistic debut. "I had a dri-
ver's license but no car, so my
mother had to drop off the ar-
ticle [at the Jewish News' of-
fice]."
The summer prior to her
senior year, Ms. Pollak had
attended a journalism pro-
gram for high-school stu-
dents at Northwestern
University that ignited her
passion for newspaper writ-
ing. When she returned
home to Bloomfield Hills at
summer's end, she sent out
letters to a number of papers,
asking to write for them
while she was finishing high
school. The only response
she received was from The Lisa Pollak:
"I was stunned."
Jewish News.
tially she submitted articles en-
tirely on her own initiative, like
the one on the tree planting. Even-
tually, the editor gave her assign-
ments.
The story Ms. Pollak wrote for
the Sun on the Hirschbeck fami-
ly also was generated on her own.
Reams of copy had been written
nationally about the spitting inci-
dent involving the Orioles' second
baseman and the umpire.
But what particularly had
gripped Ms. Pollak was an opin-
ion piece written for the Sun
by another father who had
lost a child to leukemia and
lamented that no one had fo-
cused on the fact that the
Hirschbecks' son had been
killed by a lethal disease.
"As a feature writer, I look
for the human side of news,"
Ms. Pollak said in explaining
why she chose to pursue the
story of the Hirschbecks'
saga.
Initially, the Hirschbecks,
whom Ms. Pollak describes
as private people, were re-
luctant to open up to her.
Eventually, however, they
came to believe that an arti-
cle on their tragedy might fo-
cus attention on ALD. And,.
in fact, some $9,000 has al-
ready been raised for re-
search into ALD directly as a
result of the article in the Sun.
Ms. Pollak is exceptionally
modest about her winning of the
Pulitzer, and is quick to bestow
credit to the Hirschbecks and col-
leagues at her paper.
"It wasn't just me," she insist-
ed. "Many people played a part
in the story. And I'm very in-
debted to the Hirschbecks. They
didn't have to share their story
with me. I'm just the messenger;
it's their story."
Ms. Pollak arrived in Balti-
more only last July. She had
worked at the Charlotte (N. C.)
Observer from 1992 to 1994, and
the next two years at the Raleigh
News and Observer before join-
ing the staff of the Sun.
"I'm very happy to be living in
a city with a big Jewish commu-
nity," said Ms. Pollak, who
doesn't currently belong to a con-
gregation. "That's one of the
things that attracted me to Bal-
timore."
One of the unexpected sur-
prises of winning the Pulitzer,
Ms. Pollak said, is that many old
friends, some with whom she had
been out of contact, have gotten
in touch to congratulate her.
She also said the prize itself
came as a shock.
"I was stunned," Ms. Pollak ac-
knowledged. "It's not really some-
thing you expect to happen at all
in your career, let alone at my
age."
❑
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