Pulitzer for Philippines reporting
Photographer who captured Charlottesville tragedy on last day wins
Continued from Page 15 The American Library Association is considering changing the name of an award in Wilder’s name over “racist and anti-Native sentiments” that are not “universally embraced.”
Davis, who teaches history at the University of Florida, grew up along the Gulf Coast and said that it concerned him that the Gulf was little known to Americans beyond BP oil spill of 2010.
“I feel that the spill robbed the Gulf of its true identity,” he told the AP. “It’s very much part of the larger American historical narrative but if you look at most school texts it’s not even listed in the index.”
Andrew Sean Greer’s “Less,” the comic and misbegotten adventures of a middle-aged novelist, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction on Monday.
Greer’s novel didn’t receive the same attention as Jesmyn Ward’s “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” winner of the National Book Award, or George Saunders’ “Lincoln in the Bardo.” But it was widely praised as poignant and funny and was ranked among the year’s best by The Washington Post, which called it an “elegantly” told story of a man who “loses everything: his lover, his suitcase, his beard, his dignity.”
A photographer who captured the moment a car struck several people protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville on his last day of work for a Virginia newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography Monday.
Working for The Daily Progress, Ryan Kelly captured the moment a car struck several people last August. One woman, Heather Heyer, 32, died and 19 people were injured.
Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy said during Monday’s announcement in New York that Kelly captured a “chilling image that reflected the photographer’s reflexes and concentration.”
Kelly learned he won journalism’s most prestigious prize on a plane right after it landed. Minutes later, he texted The Associated Press that he was “shocked and amazed.”
“This is an incredible honor, the Pulitzer awards have always meant so much to me,” he wrote. “I’m so proud of the work we all did at The Daily Progress, but mostly I’m still heartbroken for Heather Heyer’s family and everybody else who was affected by that tragic violence.”
Kelly was working on his last day as a full-time photographer for The Daily Progress when violence overtook the usually quiet college town.
The “Unite the Right” rally had drawn hundreds of white nationalist from around the country and descended into chaos with brawling between attendees and counterdemonstrators. Authorities say that 20-year-old James Alex Fields drove his speeding car into a group of counter protesters. He was charged with first-degree murder.
Reuters won two Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, one for exposing the methods of police killing squads in Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, and one for feature photography documenting the Rohingya migrant crisis between Myanmar and Bangladesh.
The Pulitzers, the most prestigious awards in American journalism, also honored US media for their work on some of the most pressing domestic issues such as pervasive sexual harassment in the workplace and the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 US presidential election.
“In a year in which many Pulitzers were rightly devoted to US domestic matters, we’re proud at Reuters to shine a light on global issues of profound concern and importance,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler said.
The New York Times and the New Yorker magazine shared the honor for public service for their reporting on sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The reporting revealed “explosive, impactful journalism that exposed powerful and wealthy sexual predators,” the Pulitzer board said.
Honour
Reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey shared the Times honor for their report on Weinstein, which triggered a series of similar allegations against influential men in politics, journalism and show business and gave rise to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements that have encouraged victims to come forward.
The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow was also recognized for a Weinstein report that detailed the allegations of a woman who reported her accusations to New York police. Authorities have since renewed a criminal investigation of Weinstein.
The Washington Post won the investigative reporting prize for breaking the story that the Alabama US Senate candidate Roy Moore had a history of courting teenage girls. The Moore report came as stories of men abusing their power over women abounded, contributing to changing public attitudes. Moore, a Republican backed by President Donald Trump, had been favored to win the special election but lost to Democrat Doug Jones.
The New York Times and the Washington Post shared the honor for national reporting for their coverage of the investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 US presidential election.
The award was given “for deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the Presidentelect’s transition team and his eventual administration.”
The international reporting prize was awarded to Reuters reporters Clare Baldwin, Andrew R.C. Marshall and Manuel Mogato “for relentless reporting that exposed the brutal killing campaign behind Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs,” the Pulitzer board said.
The Philippines coverage included a report that revealed how a police antidrug squad on the outskirts of Manila had recorded an unusually high number of killings. Many of those police officers in turn came from a distant place that was also Duterte’s hometown, where the campaign’s brutal methods originated during his time as mayor there.
“The series of investigations from the Philippines demonstrated how police in the president’s ‘drug war’ have killed with impunity and consistently been shielded from prosecution,” Adler said.
The feature photography prize was awarded to the Reuters photography staff “for shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar.”
“The extraordinary photography of the mass exodus of the Rohingya people to Bangladesh demonstrates not only the human cost of conflict but also the essential role photojournalism can play in revealing it,” Adler said.
Reuters won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for international reporting by Marshall and Jason Szep on the violent persecution of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in Myanmar that has often fallen victim to predatory human-trafficking networks.
Reuters’ first Pulitzer, for breaking news photography, came in 2008 for Adrees Latif’s photo of a Japanese videographer fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.
The Reuters photography staff also won the breaking news photography award in 2016 for photos of Middle Eastern refugees arriving in Europe.
Weinstein’s marriage has ended, he has been under police investigation in London, Los Angeles and New York, hit by a litany of civil lawsuits and his former production company has been forced to file for bankruptcy.
Farrow, 30, is the son of actress Mia Farrow and film director Woody Allen, and something of a prodigy who has previously fronted his own television show, worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan for late US diplomat Richard Holbrooke, and formerly advised then Hillary Clinton on global youth issues when she was secretary of state.