Pulitzer awards NYT on Russia reporting
May 5, 2020
The Pulitzer Prizes for excellence in American journalism in 2019 were released online on Monday. Initially scheduled for April 20, the awards were released two weeks later.
The delay was meant to give the Pulitzer Board members more time for their evaluations, as many were caught up reporting on the coronavirus pandemic.
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Due to the various measures to enforce social distancing, the Pulitzer awards luncheon that was scheduled for this month has been postponed.
The Pulitzer Prizes are considered the most prestigious awards in journalism in the US and have been awarded yearly since 1917.
NYT wins international reporting
This year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize in public service went to Alaska's Anchorage Daily News and the national ProPublica publications, who for a report that revealed the lack of police protection in a third of the state's villages.
An expose of predatory lending practices in New York City's taxi industry landed The New York Times the prize for investigating reporting.
The times also won the international reporting award for ''enthralling stories, reported at great risk'' about Russian President Vladimir Putin's government.
The legendary publication also won in the commentary category, for an essay by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones in the 1619 Project, a wide-ranging examination of slavery from the Americas founding to this day.
Read more: Pulitzers honor coverage of US gun massacres, Trump probes
Another newspaper giant, The Washington Post, was honored for reporting on the environmental effects of extreme temperatures, in the category of explanatory reporting.
The staff of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, were honored with the breaking news reporting award for reveling racial disparities and other issues in a spate of governor's prison pardons.
The local reporting award went to The Baltimore Sun for their investigation on a lucrative and previously undisclosed financial relationship between the mayor and the public hospital system.
In the photojournalism categories, standard bearers The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters were honored. AP won the feature photography prize for its images of India's clampdown on Kashmir, while Reuters won the breaking news photography award for its coverage of the Hong Kong protests.
Special citation
The Pulitzer board revealed that the recipient of the recipient of its special citation would be the late Ida B. Wells.
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Born and raised in the American south, Wells was a civil rights activist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who used her writing to expose how lynching was used as a tool of oppression against African Americans.
The Pulitzer board noted ''her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.''
The citation comes with a bequest of at least $50,000 in support of Wells' mission, with recipients to be announced, the board said.
jcg/rc (Reuters, AP)