Pulitzer Prize winners for 2019 are announced!

An author talking about deforestation, journalists questioning the US president’s empire, and a media house challenging the gun laws are some of those who made it to the coveted list of the Pulitzer Prize winners this year. CY delves deep.

One of the most reputed awards that recognises excellence in the field of journalism, literature, drama and musical compositions – Pulitzer declared the 2019 winners at the Columbia University in New York on April 20, 2019. The prizes are spread across a total of 21 categories. Lets take a look at the coveted winners.

Journalism

This year “Public Service Award” was grabbed by the staff of Sun-Sentinel for comprehensively covering the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This resulted in the reshaping of local gun safety policies.

While, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was honoured in the “Breaking News Reporting category” for covering the ‘Tree of Life’ synagogue’s mass shooting which left 11 worshippers dead in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Los Angeles Times’ investigative series of articles on the sexual abuser gynaecologist Dr George Tyndall of the University of Southern California helped them achieve a Pulitzer this year.

The New York Times’ 18-month long detailed reporting on the financial debunk of the US president Donald Trump’s businesses “riddled with tax dodges” gave them a Pulitzer.

Reports by the staff of The Advocate on a Louisiana law that enabled their courts to send defendants to jail without jury consensus on the accused’s guilt attained a Pulitzer in the local reporting category.

The Wall Street Journal’s revealing reports on two women who claim to receive hush money to hide their sexual encounters with president Donald Trump helped the team grab a Pulitzer in the “National Reporting” category.

The cartoons of freelancer Darrin Bell, reflecting racial injustice and political chaos during the Trump government helped him attain the award in the “Editorial Cartooning” category.

The “Breaking News Photography” category was won by 11 photographers of Reuters for stirringly ‘conveying the violent conditions that Central American migrants were leaving behind in their homelands, and the harsh response they received from the authorities when they got to the United States’.

A lot of such other journalistic achievements by the teams of Associated Press, Reuters, ProPublica, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Washington Post and The New York Times were felicitated with a Pulitzer title.

Letters, Drama and Music

Author Richard Powers’The Overstory grabbed big under the “Fiction” category. The central characters of his story are trees and the environmentally sound plot revolves around humans while communicating with nature.

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play Fairview looks like a family comedy but raises questions on race and colour, which got him an award in the “Drama” category.

The Pulitzer in “General Nonfiction” was given to Eliza Griswold’ family account – Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America. Black studies professor Jeffrey C. Stewart’s The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke won in the “Biography” category. While, David W. Blight’s Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, became a Pulitzer winning historical account of an escaped slave who became one of America’s most insightful thinkers on race, equality, and identity.

The music category was studded with a star by the mention of composer Ellen Reid for Prism, a piece on which she worked for five years. “The board appreciates her use of ‘sophisticated vocal writing and striking instrumental timbres to confront difficult subject matter: the effects of sexual and emotional abuse’,” stated the official website.

Special Citations

This was posthumously given to Aretha Franklin, the American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist for her contribution for over five decades to American music and culture. Along with her, the award was also given to the employees of the Capital Gazette for their reporting on a shooting which occurred in their newsroom, leaving five colleagues dead.

What is Pulitzer?

The entity was established in 1917 by publisher Joseph Pulitzer in the US, and Pulitzer Prize Board each year appoints 102 jury members to select winners from 20 different categories, who receive an honorarium of US$ 15,000 and a certificate, while the winner in public service category is awarded a gold medal by the same jury.

Source: The Pulitzer Prize &New York Times

For the complete list of winners click here