The Times coverage
Not surprisingly, there was some criticism, at least on social media, that The New York Times won the International Reporting Pulitzer for its coverage of Oct. 7.
My Poynter colleague, Angela Fu, noted, “The Times’ entry did not include its Dec. 28 report that purported to find a pattern of sexual violence against women during Hamas’ attack on Israel. The controversial investigation, “Screams Without Words: Sexual Violence on Oct. 7,” has faced intense scrutiny from critics who have questioned its accuracy and reporting process.”
Even beyond that, the Times has become a lightning rod for all sides regarding its coverage. The blowback for winning journalism’s highest award for writing about such a polarizing topic could not have been unexpected for the Pulitzer Board.
Yet one cannot deny the Times’ entry was incredibly well done, and prize-worthy.
Great writing
The Feature Writing category was especially strong. The winner ended up being Katie Engelhart, a contributing writer for The New York Times, for her story about dementia and what happens in its wake.
But the other finalists were also superb. One was Keri Blakinger, who is now with the Los Angeles Times. If you’re not familiar, Blakinger once served time behind bars and has spent much of her career since then writing — extremely authoritatively and well — about the prison system. She has become one of those writers that you have to read every time she publishes something. Blakinger’s submission was when she was with The Marshall Project (in partnership with The New York Times Magazine) and she wrote about men on death row in Texas who play the fantasy game “Dungeons & Dragons.”
Meanwhile, are there many better feature writers in the country at the moment than The Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior? Senior won the Feature Writing Pulitzer in 2022 and her deeply personal story about her family easily could have won this year.
Profile in courage
In what was my favorite Pulitzer winner this year, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a contributor for The Washington Post, won in the Commentary category. Kara-Murza puts his own life and future freedom in grave jeopardy by writing his columns from behind bars in Russia. He writes them in longhand, and then hands them over to his attorney, who brings them out at considerable risk. Stunning when you think about it.
Kara-Murza has been imprisoned in Russia since 2022 following his criticism of the war in Ukraine and was sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of treason last year.
A haunting series
I mentioned the Post won three Pulitzers. In addition to Kara-Murza and David E. Hoffman (Editorial Writing), the Post won in National Reporting for its sober examination of the AR-15, which has become a popular choice for those who commit mass shootings. Last year, I spoke with Post executive editor Sally Buzbee about the Post’s decision to show extremely graphic photos of mass shootings. She told me at the time, “We’re not trying to create things purely for shock value. What we really sought to do here was to show just how destructive, how profoundly devastating this type of shooting with this type of weapon is.”
Big and small
When it came to this year's winners and finalists, you had a lot of really big news outlets (The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, etc.) and quite a few small outlets who made the list. What you didn’t have a lot of was much of the middle. I’m talking about the normally strong local, regional-type papers such as, say, The Boston Globe, The Star Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, and so on.
My colleague Rick Edmonds, Poynter’s media business analyst, pointed out, “For-profit metro newspapers and their digital sites … long a significant presence in capturing journalism’s highest honors, were virtually shut out. They did not have a winner and placed just six finalists in the 15 journalism categories. Off years can happen in unpredictable fashion in the Pulitzer judging process, as the initial juries work independently and balance is not a consideration. But it is hard not to see the constantly worsening financial plight of the metros stripping them of capacity to do the very best work.”
Longtime media reporter Paul Farhi noted on X how big news organizations dominated this year’s Pulitzers. Of the 15 journalism categories, The Washington Post and The New York Times won three prizes each; Reuters and The New Yorker each won two; and The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and ProPublica won one each. Farhi added, “Not a sign of a healthy business.”
It’s important to point out that this is just one year. Just a year ago, The Boston Globe, The Star Tribune, Detroit Free Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday and Houston Chronicle were finalists. The Miami Herald and AL.com won Pulitzers. This year’s first-ever Poynter Prizes recognized outstanding work from metro dailies that easily could have been Pulitzer finalists this year.
But it is something to keep in mind in the years ahead. As Edmonds wrote, “I want to be hopeful that the metros will do better a year from now as the long look for a new business model finds traction. Four months into 2024, however, their finances appear to be as bad or worse.”
Drawing up another good year
Clay Bennett didn’t win the Pulitzer this year, but the editorial cartoonist was a finalist in the category of Illustrated Reporting and Commentary, adding to his already amazing Pulitzer resume. Bennett won the 2002 prize for Editorial Cartooning, and was a finalist in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2008 and 2013. It was nice to see him back among the finalists this year. The winner was Medar de la Cruz for The New Yorker.
Look who it is
Zadie Smith is best known for her books, including her 2000 debut “White Teeth.” (A personal favorite of mine.) But this year, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in the Criticism category for her New York Review of Books’ film review of “Tár.” The winner, however, was the Los Angeles Times’ Justin Chang for his film criticism.
The big prize
Public Service is considered the most prestigious award of the Pulitzers. This year’s Pulitzer in that category went to some of the most talked about reporting of the year as ProPublica’s Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg wrote about a small group of politically influential billionaires who bought gifts and trips for Supreme Court justices, raising concerns that the court could be bought. It’s hard to remember a story with more buzz last year.
For more on this, I turn it over to my Poynter colleagues Ellen Hine and Josie Hollingsworth.
How ProPublica’s audience engagement strategy kept its groundbreaking reporting top-of-mind
If you were on social media at all last spring, you probably couldn’t escape ProPublica’s stories that looked into ties between the U.S. Supreme Court justices and the billionaires who wooed them with lavish gifts and travel.
Good audience engagement gives readers multiple avenues for entering a story. ProPublica’s robust social media promotion for its “Friends of the Court” series, which won this year’s prize for Public Service, did exactly that.
Long X threads showed off the private jet and 162-foot yacht that Justice Clarence Thomas and major Republican donor Harlan Crow used for their luxury trips together. Instagram posts shared strikingly chummy pictures of Thomas and Crow together on vacation and highlighted bank records showing how Crow paid the private school tuition of Thomas’ grandnephew. And live events took readers behind the scenes of the investigation into the justices’ relationships with billionaire donors.
