New York Times Leads Pulitzers With 4

NEW YORK — The New York Times won four Pulitzer Prizes, including the Explanatory Reporting award for its examination of the failures and missteps made by the United States in Afghanistan.

Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism announced the 109th annual Pulitzer Prizes Monday in New York. The awards honored the best reporting from 2024 in 15 categories, as well as eight arts categories focused on books, music and theater. A special citation was given to the late journalist Chuck Stone for career achievements that included covering the Civil Rights Movement and co-founding the National Association of Black Journalists.

ProPublica won the prestigious Public Service award for its reporting on pregnant women who died after doctors delayed their care out of fear of violating strict abortion laws in certain states. Reuters staff earned the Investigative Reporting prize for their coverage of lax regulations that help make fentanyl easily accessible in the U.S.

Bloomberg News won its second Pulitzer — for Alexandra Lange’s criticism on architectural design. Lange, a contributing writer for Bloomberg CityLab, won for her “graceful and genre-expanding writing about public spaces for families, deftly using interviews, observations and analysis to consider the architectural components that allow children and communities to thrive,” the university said in a statement. Lange’s essays, reviews and profiles have also appeared in multiple design publications including Architect, Harvard Design Magazine, and Metropolis, as well as in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The New Yorker and the New York Times.

With the exception of the Public Service winner, Pulitzer award recipients get a $15,000 cash prize, which was raised from $10,000 in 2017. The public-service prize is a gold medal given to a news organization.

The prizes were a celebration of journalism at a time when the media is under attack by the government. “These are particularly difficult times for the media and publishers in the United States,” said Marjorie Miller, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes. She praised journalism coming from “unbowed newsrooms.”

U.S. President Donald Trump is suing current and former members of the Pulitzer board for alleged defamation. Trump filed the lawsuit in 2022, claiming the board members conspired against him and defamed him by refusing to rescind Pulitzer Prizes for articles related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its alleged ties to Trump.

A judge declined the board members’ request to pause the case until Trump leaves the White House. Trump’s Pulitzer lawsuit is one of several he’s filed against major media companies, including Paramount Global’s CBS unit and Walt Disney Co.’s ABC.

“Journalists and writers now face additional threats in the form of legal harassment, the banning of books and attacks on their work and legitimacy,” Miller said. “These efforts are meant to silence criticism, to edit or rewrite history. They’re an attempt to erode the first amendment of our Constitution, which guarantees a free press and free speech.”

Winners in journalism categories:

Public service

Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser, Cassandra Jaramillo and Stacy Kranitz for their reporting about pregnant women who died after doctors delayed urgently needed care for fear of violating vague “life of the mother” exceptions in states with strict abortion laws.

Breaking news reporting

The staff of the Washington Post for their coverage of the July 13 attempt to assassinate Trump, including detailed story-telling and sharp analysis that coupled traditional police reporting with audio and visual forensics.

Investigative reporting

The staff of Reuters for an exposé of lax regulation in the U.S. and abroad that makes fentanyl, one of the world’s deadliest drugs, inexpensive and widely available to users in the U.S.

Explanatory reporting

Azam Ahmed and Christina Goldbaum of the New York Times and Matthieu Aikins, contributing writer, for an examination of how the U.S. sowed the seeds of its own failure in Afghanistan, primarily by supporting murderous militia that drove civilians to the Taliban.

Local reporting

Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher of the Baltimore Banner and the New York Times for an investigative series that captured Baltimore’s fentanyl crisis and its disproportionate impact on older Black men and creating a statistical model that The Banner shared with other newsrooms.

National reporting

The staff of the Wall Street Journal for chronicling the political and personal shifts of Elon Musk, including his turn to conservative politics, his use of legal and illegal drugs and his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

International reporting

Declan Walsh and the staff of the New York Times for their investigation of the conflict in Sudan, including reporting on foreign influence and the lucrative gold trade fueling it, and forensic accounts of the Sudanese forces responsible for atrocities and famine.

Feature writing

Mark Warren, contributor, Esquire for a sensitive portrait of a Baptist pastor and small-town mayor who died by suicide after his secret digital life was exposed by a right-wing news site.

Commentary

Mosab Abu Toha, contributor, the New Yorker for essays on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza after more than a year and a half of war with Israel.

Criticism

Alexandra Lange, contributing writer, Bloomberg CityLab for writing about public spaces for families and using interviews, observations and analysis to consider the architectural components that allow children and communities to thrive.

Editorial writing

Raj Mankad, Sharon Steinmann, Lisa Falkenberg and Leah Binkovitz of the Houston Chronicle for a series on dangerous train crossings that kept a rigorous focus on the people and communities at risk.

Illustrated reporting and commentary

Ann Telnaes of the Washington Post for delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness and creativity.

Breaking news photography

Doug Mills of the New York Times for a sequence of photos of the attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, including one image that captures a bullet whizzing through the air as he speaks.

Feature photography

Moises Saman, contributor, the New Yorker for his haunting black and white images of Sednaya prison in Syria.

Audio reporting

The staff of the New Yorker for their “In the Dark” podcast, which combined compelling storytelling and relentless reporting in the face of obstacles from the U.S. military.