Lamar’s win has made history
Compton’s native son earns a Pulitzer Prize.
Their names are inked in history books and on the walls of hallowed concert halls as winners of American music’s most esteemed award, the Pulitzer Prize for music: Aaron Copland, George Crumb, John Luther Adams, Ornette Coleman, Caroline Shaw and dozens more.
Add to that list the man nicknamed Kung Fu Kenny.
In news that caught many off guard, celebrated Compton-born rapper Kendrick Lamar was awarded the Pulitzer on Monday for his work on his 2017 album “Damn.” With the announcement, the committee praised Lamar’s album as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”
Translation: It’s an amazing album that docu-
The journalists whose investigations ignited the #MeToo movement — shaking workplaces and entire industries around the U.S. over the last year and heralding a new era in gender politics — received top honors at Monday’s announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes.
Writers at the New York Times and New Yorker magazine shared the prestigious prize for public service for publishing bombshell investigations revealing mistreatment of women by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men.
In the investigative reporting category, the Washington Post won for uncovering allegations that Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually mistreated teenage girls decades ago. The reporting, published during the campaign, was a decisive factor in Moore losing the oncesafe Republican seat to a Democrat.
The winners of the Pulitzer Prizes — print journalism’s highest honors — were announced at Columbia University in New York.
The awards came at a time when journalists’ work have been under siege by an array of forces: social media platforms that draw away readers and help promulgate hoaxes; declining advertising revenue and private equity owners that slash reporting jobs; and a White House whose relationship with the press can be described only as adversarial.
In the national reporting category, the New York Times and the Washington Post shared an award for their dogged reporting into the connections between Russia and President Trump, with the publications one-upping each other with scoop after scoop — a newspaper war for the 21st century.
The Arizona Republic and the USA Today Network won the prize for explanatory reporting for scrutinizing the complications in Trump’s plans for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the Cincinnati Enquirer won the local reporting prize for its coverage of the heroin epidemic.
For the third year in a row, a California newspaper collected the prize for breaking news as the Santa Rosa Press Democrat won for its coverage of last year’s devastating wildfires in Sonoma County.
Last year, the East Bay Times won the award for its coverage of the deadly Ghost Ship fire at an Oakland warehouse. The Los Angeles Times won in 2016 for its coverage of the San Bernardino mass shooting.
Times columnist Steve Lopez was a finalist — for the third time in his career — in the commentary category, earning plaudits for his columns on the growing divide between California’s haves and have-nots. This year’s award was given to John Archibald of the Alabama Media Group.
Andie Dominick of the Des Moines Register won the award for editorial writing for commentary on Iowa’s privatization of Medicaid, and New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz won the award for criticism.
Reuters collected the award for international reporting for its coverage of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs. The wire service also collected the award for feature photography for its work documenting the plight of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar.
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah won the feature writing award for a GQ magazine profile of Charleston, S.C., gunman and white nationalist Dylann Roof.
Ryan Kelly of the Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va., won the breaking news photography award for a harrowing shot of a car driving into a crowd of anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in that city last year.
In the editorial cartooning category, Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan won for a series about refugees in the New York Times.