University of Missouri Press 473 pp. $39.95

American newspapers today face odds a Vegas bookie or a social Darwinist might find daunting. With worrisome frequency, the news business itself is the subject of woe-be-us reporting.

Dire dispatches notwithstanding, the longer view of ink-on-paper journalism stresses civic surveillance and commitment, providing a hopeful counterpoint. Exigencies of the moment should never obscure the historic significance of a free press to the workings of democracy.

Pulitzer's Gold by Roy J. Harris Jr. is both antidote and anthem. This well-researched and engrossingly presented study chronicles time-bound cases of award-winning journalism with timeless lessons for news people and citizens who care about reportage with reverberation.

Harris, a veteran editor and reporter, relates stories behind the stories that won the Gold Medal for public service in the annual Pulitzer Prize competition. Since the award first went to the New York Times in 1918 for its World War I coverage, the medal has recognized a newspaper, not an individual journalist. Exposing wrongdoing by government, business and other institutions is a refrain of winning entries, and in many cases the articles singled out result in helping correct the problem.

By interviewing journalists participating in Gold Medal performances, Harris takes a reader inside the newsroom. He provides detailed accounts of the Washington Post for its revelations about Watergate, the Boston Globe for its reporting on the scandal involving Catholic clergy, and the New York Times for its comprehensive handling of post-September 11 America. Recent cases tend to receive more extensive treatment, but the author also mines the Pulitzer archives and historical accounts for background illuminating earlier winners.

In 1948 and 1950, Harris' own father contributed as a reporter to coverage that won two Gold Medals for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Remarkably, that paper - led by editor-publisher Joseph Pulitzer - received five public-service awards between 1937 and 1952. Though concerned journalistic colleagues might look askance at Pulitzer Prizes for a Pulitzer paper, he pushed his staff to do its best - and fostered a philosophy that no story was too expensive, if a newspaper really wanted to pursue it.

Pulitzer's father had begun thinking about establishing annual awards for journalism and arts and letters as far back as 1902, almost two decades before they were instituted. The senior Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst had made journalism and sensationalism synonymous in the final years of the 19th century with what was called the Yellow Press, so a proposal to honor exemplary work made the public think differently about Pulitzer.

Harris sees similarities between Pulitzer and Alfred Nobel, the Swedish munitions maker who created prizes for international achievements, including one for peace. Exact motivation remains a mystery. Harris writes: "Whether Pulitzer acted out of a need for redemption for earlier career sins is likewise open to speculation."

What's clear, though, is Pulitzer's desire to salute excellence and to make the Gold Medal (in the original description) for "the most disinterested and meritorious public service." Today, the citation focuses on "a distinguished example of meritorious public service."

Since the Gold Medal is an institutional rather than an individual prize, the award always involves collaboration among staff members - reporters, editors, photographers - and the author deftly probes the process. For instance, we're informed that the draft of one eventual winner began with a submission of 35,000 words. Initial editing reduced it to 15,000 - and later cutting to 7,000.

Harris devotes considerable attention to The Philadelphia Inquirer and the period between 1975 and 1990, when this paper or its staff members garnered 17 Pulitzers, including two Gold Medals. Hired to improve The Inquirer, executive editor Eugene L. Roberts Jr. gave reporters time and encouragement to pursue stories in complexity-clarifying depth.

In 1977, two reporters, William K. Marimow and Jonathan Neumann, began documenting abuses of power by Philadelphia police, including beatings, threats, and illegal interrogations. The articles won the 1978 Gold Medal, prompting Harris to comment: "For Roberts, The Inquirer's first Gold Medal was particularly sweet because it recognized the entire staff's work turning around the paper."

Seven years later, Marimow (now the editor of The Inquirer) received a Pulitzer for investigative reporting. He tells Harris the personal Pulitzer - about police dogs attacking suspects - sits in a desk drawer, while a replica of the public service citation, signed by Roberts, hangs on a wall at home. That award represents, in Marimow's phrase, recognition as "the greatest among equals."

Pulitzer's Gold is first-rate journalism history. Especially when the future of the news business seems murky and the legion of media critics keeps growing, Harris' book celebrates the gold standard of press coverage - work of consequence worth striving to emulate as a service to the public and to American democracy.