Editorial Pulitzer needs restructuring.

THE TIME HAS COME for Pulitzer Prize officials to make a change in the Editorial Writing award.

The prize is awarded in only one editorial category. The number of categories should be increased to three. We suggest the following:

1. For the most distinguished single editorial published during the year;

2. For the most distinguished series of editorials on a single subject; and

3. For the most distinguished body of editorials on a variety of subjects published throughout the year.

The present one-category system is woefully inadequate in recognizing the variety of purposes and of talents demanded of editorial writing and editorial writers today. It is justified by the historical multiplication of categories in other Pulitzer Prize awards.

Recognizing an individual editorial was the intent of Joseph Pulitzer when he outlined the Pulitzer Prize program in 1902. From the prize's rounding in 1917 through 1934, the award went to a single editorial with only two exceptions. Since 1934 the award has been based on single editorials on only three occasions.

Today, the award is described as recognizing "the whole volume of the editorial writer's work during the year." In practice, however, it usually is given for a series of editorials focusing on one topic.

There is, therefore, ample justification in the Pulitzer program itself for expanding the Editorial Writing award to three categories: In the original design of the award (recognizing one outstanding editorial), in the award as the Pulitzer Prize rules describe the category (recognizing a writer's body of work for the entire year), and in the procedure that is actually in force (recognizing a series of editorials on one subject).

The reasons for expanding the Editorial Writing award to three categories are simple. The variety of approaches used by editorial writers today and the demands they present have changed since 1917. Some editorials are written under a deadline pressure as severe as anything in reporting, or are based on news pegs that may allow no more than a day or two of contemplation. Some single editorials may be powerful enough to require no follow-up. Many of them are so well composed that they deserve individual recognition.

Still others are crafted as a powerful single-subject series, as many recent awards reflect. The focused series demands distinctively different approaches than does the masterful single editorial.

Then there are editorials written consistently well on miscellaneous topics over a longer period of time that demonstrate a writer's mastery of structure and style. The work of editorial writers today, given the variety of issues and topics they address and the methods of presentation they must use, is extraordinarily difficult. It's clear that more than one award is needed to recognize the variety of superior work they do.

Perhaps the best evidence to expand the Editorial Writing category is in the multiplication by Pulitzer officials of other categories. The Pulitzer Prize began in 1917 with three journalism categories, one each in "Editorial Writing," "Reporting," and "Meritorious Public Service." The number has since increased to 14, six of them in reporting.

While the original single award for editorial writing has remained the lone one, the original "Reporting" category has been altered and expanded a total of 16 times. Today the original award has been replaced by six awards: National Reporting (1948), International Reporting (1948), Investigative Reporting (1985), Explanatory Journalism (1985), Spot News Reporting (1991), and Beat Reporting (1991).

Even as we recognize that reporting occupies more column inches than does editorial writing (although advertising outweighs both on the average), it is difficult to justify six Pulitzer Prize categories of the one, divided into precise areas, and only one category of the other.

In the past, Pulitzer Prize officials have shown a willingness to adjust the awards to the dramatic changes in American newspaper reporting and other areas of modern journalism. Now it's time to recognize the equally demanding need to expand the prize for distinction in editorial writing in recognition of the passion and vigor expressed in the editorials of many of the nation's nearly 1,600 daily newspapers and over 7,000 weeklies.

NCEW member Laird B. Anderson teaches editorial writing at American University in Washington, D.C. Wm. David Sloan teaches editorial writing at the University of Alabama. They are co-editors of the second edition of Pulitzer Prize Editorials: America's Best Editorial Writing, 1917-1993.