New Yorker, NYT feted for #MeToo watershed
THE New York Times and The New Yorker won the Pulitzer Prize for public service on Monday for explosive reporting that brought down Harvey Weinstein and spawned a cultural watershed on the issue of sexual harassment.
The prestigious prize was awarded to the Times team led by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey and New Yorker contributor Ronan Farrow, for reports that disgraced the Hollywood mogul and sparked an avalanche of accusations against other powerful men.
Since the Times and New Yorker articles last October, more than 100 women have publicly accused the producer of misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to rape, sparking the #MeToo movement that has seen a string of influential men lose their jobs and reputation.
“This moment gets called a reckoning, but we just started telling the truth about old abuses of power. Thanks to all who keep doing so,” Farrow wrote on Twitter.
The 102th edition of the Pulitzer Prizes were announced at Columbia University in New York by administrator Dana Canedy at a time when the US news media is still under assault from the White House for peddling “fake news.”
The Washington Post won the Pulitzer in the investigative category for relentless reporting seen as having influenced the outcome of the 2017 Senate race in Alabama, revealing Republican candidate Roy Moore’s alleged past sexual harassment of teenage girls.
The New York Times and The Washington Post shared the national reporting prize for furthering understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the connections between Russian actors and the Trump campaign, and administration, Canedy said.
Reuters won the 2018 prize in international reporting for coverage of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. The news agency also won in the feature photography category for its coverage of the Rohingya crisis.
The prize for breaking news photography went to Ryan Kelly of The Daily Progress for a chilling image that captured the moment of impact by a car at a racially-charged protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one woman dead last August.
The Pulitzer for fiction went to Andrew Sean Greer for “Less” about growing older and love. The history prize was awarded to “The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea,” and the prize in drama for “Cost of Living” by playwright Martyna Majok.
Canedy praised the winners but urged the media to do more to improve trust with a skeptical public and to work harder to include more varied gender and racial perspectives.