James Risser, a two-time Pulitzer winner and the retired director of the Knight Fellowships at Stanford, debunks an urban myth about legendary columnist Herb Caen (pictured). The myth is that Pulitzer Board members awarded Caen journalism’s most coveted honor in 1996 because they knew he would soon die from lung cancer. Risser says that assumption is wrong — and Risser would know because he served on the board at the time. In this commentary for the Chronicle, Risser discusses the board’s private deliberations about Caen. [Caen’s April 10, 1996 column, the day after he won the Pulitzer]