PUBLIC SERVICE
The Washington Post
The Pulitzer committee honored The Washington Post for, as it put it, “piercing the veil of secrecy around the Trump administration’s chaotic overhaul of federal agencies and chronicling in rich detail the human impacts of the cuts and the consequences for the country.”
Finalists The Chicago Tribune; Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo of The Wall Street Journal
BREAKING NEWS
The Minnesota Star Tribune
The staff of The Minnesota Star Tribune won for its reporting on a shooting at a Catholic school that killed two children and wounded 17. The committee called the reporting “powerful” and “marked by thoroughness and compassion.”
Finalists Staff of The Seattle Times; staff of the Southern California News Group; staff of The Wall Street Journal
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
The New York Times
The New York Times received the award for what the committee called “deeply reported stories that exposed how President Trump has shattered constraints on conflicts of interest and exploited the moneymaking opportunities that come with power, enriching his family and allies.”
Finalists Debbie Cenziper, Megan Rose and Brandon Roberts of ProPublica; Cynthia Dizikes and Joaquin Palomino of The San Francisco Chronicle
EXPLANATORY REPORTING
Susie Nelson, Megan Fan Munce and Sara DiNatale of The San Francisco Chronicle
The committee awarded the journalists for their series, “Burned,” which demonstrated how insurance companies using algorithms “have failed Californians who lost their homes to fire by systematically undervaluing their properties, denying claims, and making it impossible for them to rebuild.”
Finalists Staff of Bloomberg News; Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester of ProPublica
beat REPORTING
Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham of Reuters
Mr. Horwitz and Ms. Tham won for “inventive and revelatory reporting on Meta that detailed the technology company’s willingness to expose users, including children, to scams and A.I. manipulation,” the committee said.
Finalists Hamed Aleaziz of The New York Times; Nick Miroff of The Atlantic
LOCAL REPORTING
Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk of The Connecticut Mirror and Sophie Chou and Haru Coryne of ProPublica; and Staff of The Chicago Tribune
The Pulitzer committee awarded two prizes in this category. One was shared by Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk of The Connecticut Mirror and Sophie Chou and Haru Coryn of ProPublica for what the committee called “an impressive series exposing how the state’s unique towing laws favored unscrupulous companies that overcharged residents, prompting swift and meaningful consumer protections.” The staff of The Chicago Tribune took the other prize for its reporting on “the Trump administration’s militarized immigration sweep of the city that described in vivid, muscular prose how the siege-like incursion of ICE agents unified Chicagoans in resistance,” the committee said.
Finalists Liz Bowie, Greg Morton, Ryan Little and Allan James Vestal of The Baltimore Banner; Staffs of The Miami Herald and WLRN
NATIONAL REPORTING
Ned Parker, Linda So, Peter Eisler and Mike Spector of Reuters
The team of Reuters reporters won for “documenting how the president used the U.S. government and the influence of his supporters to expand executive power and exact vengeance on his foes,” the committee said.
Finalists Staff of Bloomberg News; staff of The Washington Post
INTERNATIONAL REPORTING
Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Yael Grauer (contributor) of The Associated Press
The A.P. team received the award for what the committee called “an astonishing global investigation into state-of-the-art tools of mass surveillance, created in Silicon Valley, advanced in China, and spreading worldwide before returning to America for secret new uses by the U.S. Border Patrol.”
Finalists Stephanie Nolen of The New York Times; staff of The Wall Street Journal
Feature writing
Aaron Parsley of Texas Monthly
The committee gave the prize to Mr. Parsley for his “extraordinary personal account of survival and loss written days after the historic Central Texas floods that tore the writer’s house out from under him and his family, taking the life of his nephew.”
Finalists Emily Baumgaertner Nunn of The New York Times; Rachel Aviv of The New Yorker
CRITICISM
Mark Lamster of The Dallas Morning News
Mr. Lamster won for “his rigorous and passionate architecture criticism, using wit and expertise to amplify his opinions and advocate for city residents,” the committee said.
Finalists Vinson Cunningham of The New Yorker; Michael J. Lewis of The Wall Street Journal
Opinion writing
M. Gessen of The New York Times
The committee said it gave the award to M. Gessen for their “illuminating collection of reported essays on rising authoritarian regimes that draw on history and personal experience to probe timely themes of oppression, belonging and exile.”
Finalists Gustavo Arellano of The Los Angeles Times; Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times
Illustrated Reporting and Commentary
Anand RK and Suparna Sharma, contributors, and Natalie Obiko Pearson of Bloomberg News
Anand RK and Suparna Sharma, contributors, and Natalie Obiko Pearson of Bloomberg News were honored for the graphic novel “trAPPed,” which the Pulitzer committee called “a riveting account of a neurologist in India threatened with ‘digital arrest’ by phone, visuals and words that cast light on the growing challenges of surveillance and digital scams.”
Finalists Ivan Ehlers, freelancer; Peter Kuper, freelancer; Adolfo Arranz, Poppy McPherson, Devjyot Ghoshal and Han Huang of Reuters
BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY
Saher Alghorra, Contributor, The New York Times
The committee recognized Mr. Alghorra for his “haunting, sensitive series showing the devastation and starvation in Gaza resulting from the war with Israel.”
Finalists Photography staff of The Los Angeles Times; photography staff of Reuters.
FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
Jahi Chikwendiu, The Washington Post
Jahi Chikwendiu was honored “for a heart-wrenching and achingly beautiful photo essay on a young family welcoming the birth of their first child as the father is slowly dying from cancer.”
Finalists Gabrielle Lurie of The San Francisco Chronicle; photography staff of The New York Times.
AUDIO REPORTING
“Pablo Torre Finds Out”
The staff of “Pablo Torre Finds Out” won for a form of live podcast journalism that investigated “how the Los Angeles Clippers seemingly evaded the N.B.A.’s salary cap by funneling money to a star player.”
Finalists Azeen Ghorayshi and Austin Mitchell of The New York Times; Valerie Bauerlein, Heather Rogers, Colin McNulty, Nathan Singhapok and Rachel Humphreys of The Wall Street Journal
FICTION
“Angel Down,” by Daniel Kraus
Mr. Kraus’s book was honored as “a stylistic tour-de-force” that blends allegory, magical realism and science fiction into a whole — told in a single sentence.
Finalists “Audition,” by Katie Kitamura; “Stag Dance,” by Torrey Peters.
DRAMA
“Liberation,” by Bess Wohl
Ms. Wohl’s play was honored for exploring “the legacy of the consciousness-raising feminist groups of the 1970s, using the story of her own mother to demonstrate how the movement grew out of conversation.”
Finalists “Bowl EP,” by Nazareth Hassan; “Meet the Cartozians,” by Talene Monahon
HISTORY
“We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution,” by Jill Lepore
Ms. Lepore won the prize for “a lively and engaging narrative that investigates why the Constitution is so difficult to amend, including a review of noteworthy failed amendments proposed by marginalized groups,” the committee said.
Finalists “King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation,” by Scott Anderson; “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City,” by Bench Ansfield
biography
“Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution,” by Amanda Vaill
The committee honored Ms. Vaill’s book, a biography of two daughters of wealthy Dutch landowners, which it said used “present tense to tell their story and past tense to chronicle the dramatic sweep of the American Revolution.”
Finalists “The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford,” by James McWilliams; “True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen,” by Lance Richardson
MEMOIR OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY
“Things in Nature Merely Grow,” by Yiyun Li
Ms. Li won for her “moving and revelatory account” of losing her younger son to suicide several years after her older son died in the same way. It is “an austere and defiant memoir of acceptance that focuses on facts, language and the persistence of life,” the committee said.
Finalists “I’ll Tell You When I’m Home,” by Hala Alyan; “Clam Down,” by Anelise Chen; “Bibliophobia,” by Sarah Chihaya
poetry
“Ars Poeticas,” by Juliana Spahr
Ms. Spahr’s collection, in which “the poet takes stock of her personal disillusionment,” won for examining her relationship to her art form, community and politics, the committee said.
Finalists “I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always,” by Douglas Kearney; “The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems,” by Patricia Smith
GENERAL NONFICTION
“There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America,” by Brian Goldstone
Mr. Goldstone’s book, the committee said, was “a feat of reportage, analysis and storytelling focusing on the issues that have created a national crisis of family homelessness.”
Finalists “A Flower Traveled in My Blood,” by Haley Cohen Gilliland; “Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church,” by Kevin Sacks
MUSIC
“Picaflor: A Future Myth,” by Gabriela Lena Frank
Ms. Frank was honored for composing a “symphonic work informed by her personal experiences with California wildfires and Andean legend.” It follows a hummingbird through its attempts to escape cataclysms.
Finalists “In the Arms of the Beloved,” by Billy Childs; “American Descent,” by Andrew Rindfleisch
SPECIAL CITATION
Julie K. Brown
The Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown was awarded a special citation for her reporting in 2017 and 2018 that exposed Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic abuse of young women, the system that protected him and his network of enablers. Her series, “Perversion of Justice,” published nearly a decade ago, revealed how prosecutors shielded Mr. Epstein from federal sex trafficking charges, and gives voice to the scores of victims abused by him and others.
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