WaPo receives top award for Jan 6 coverage
NEW YORK: The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize in public service journalism on Monday for its coverage of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, an attack on democracy that was a shocking start to a tumultuous year that also saw the end of the United States’ longest war, in Afghanistan.
The Post’s extensive reporting, published in a sophisticated interactive series, found numerous problems and failures in political systems and security before, during and after the Jan 6, 2021, riot in the newspaper’s own backyard.
The “compellingly told and vividly presented account” gave the public “a thorough and unflinching understanding of one of the nation’s darkest days”, said Marjorie Miller, administrator of the prizes, in announcing the award.
Five Getty Images photographers were awarded one of the two prizes in breaking news photography for their coverage of the riot. The other prize awarded in breaking news photography went to Los Angeles Times correspondent and photographer Marcus Yam, for work related to the fall of Kabul.
The US pullout and resurrection of the Taliban’s grip on
Afghanistan permeated across categories, with The New York Times winning in the international reporting category for reporting challenging official accounts of civilian deaths from US airstrikes in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pulitzer Prizes, administered by Columbia University and considered the most prestigious in American journalism, recognise work in 15 journalism categories and seven arts categories. This year’s awards, which were livestreamed, honoured work produced in 2021. The winner of the public service award receives a gold medal, while winners of each of the other categories get $15,000.
The intersection of health, safety and infrastructure played a prominent role among the winning projects.
The Tampa Bay Times won the investigative reporting award for Poisoned, its in-depth look into a polluting lead factory.
The Miami Herald took the breaking news award for its work covering the deadly Surfside condo tower collapse, while The Better Government Association and the Chicago Tribune won the local reporting award for Deadly Fires, Broken Promises, the watchdog and newspaper’s examination of a lack of enforcement of fire safety standards.