L-R, East Bay Times reporters Matthias Gafni, Thomas Peele, Harry Harris, Erin Baldassari and David Debolt react as they learn of their Pulitzer Prize win for breaking news at their office in downtown Oakland, California, U.S., April 10, 2017. Jane Tyska/Courtesy Bay Area News Group via REUTERS
New York: The Pulitzer Prizes on Monday honoured The Washington Post for hard-hitting reporting on Donald Trump's presidential campaign and The New York Times for revealing Vladimir Putin's covert power grab, praising their probing of powerful people despite a hostile climate for the news media.
The Daily News of New York and ProPublica, a web-based platform specialising in investigative journalism, won the prize for public service journalism for coverage of New York police abuses that forced mostly poor minorities from their homes.
Other winners included an international consortium of more than 300 reporters on six continents that exposed the so-called Panama Papers detailing the hidden infrastructure and global scale of offshore tax havens used by the high and mighty.
The Pulitzers, the most prestigious honours in American journalism, have been awarded since 1917, often going to famed publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
But they are also won by smaller, lesser known publications across the country whose work does not always gain national attention when it is published.
Reporter Eric Eyre of Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia took the prize for investigative reporting for exposing a flood of opioids in depressed West Virginia counties with the country's highest overdose death rates.
The staff of the East Bay Times of Oakland, California, won the breaking news award for coverage of the "Ghost Ship" fire that killed 36 people at a warehouse party, exposing the city's failure to take actions that might have prevented the disaster.
'TRANSPARENT JOURNALISM'
While the Pulitzer ceremony highlighted the news media's importance to democracy, it has been challenged by so-called fake news, which once referred to fabricated stories meant to influence the U.S. election but has become a term used by Trump to dismiss factual reporting that is critical. Trump has frequently excoriated the media and in February called it "the enemy of the American people."
Operating in the glare of the 2016 presidential campaign, David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post took the national reporting award. The judges said he "created a model for transparent journalism in political campaign coverage while casting doubt on Donald Trump's assertions of generosity toward charities."
Fahrenthold found that Trump's charitable giving had not always matched his public statements. He also broke perhaps the biggest scoop of the campaign, revealing Trump had been captured on videotape making crude remarks about women and bragging about kissing and grabbing them without their permission.
The Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, a longtime Republican, took the commentary prize for a series of critical pieces about Trump during the real estate magnate's successful run for the White House.
The New York Times staff won the international reporting prize for articles on Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to project Russia's power abroad, a particularly pertinent story given U.S. intelligence conclusions that Putin's government actively tried to influence the U.S. election in Trump's favour.
The Times revealed "techniques that included assassination, online harassment and the planting of incriminating evidence on opponents," the judges said.
In national reporting, the Reuters team of Renee Dudley, Steve Stecklow, Alexandra Harney, Irene Jay Liu, Koh Gui Qing, James Pomfret and Ju-min Park was recognised for their series “Cheat Sheet,” documenting how the business of college admissions and standardised testing has been corrupted.
The 19-member Pulitzer board is made up of past winners and other distinguished journalists and academics. It chose the winners with the help of 102 jurors.
More than 2,500 entries were submitted this year, competing for 21 prizes. Seven of the awards recognise fiction, drama, history, biographies, poetry, general nonfiction and music.
Author Colson Whitehead won the fiction award for "The Underground Railroad," a work the judges said "combines the violence of slavery and the drama of escape in a myth that speaks to contemporary America."
The Pulitzers began in 1917 after a bequest from newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer.
David A. Fahrenthold won the prize for national reporting, with the judges citing his stories about Trump's charitable foundation that called into question whether the real estate magnate was as generous as he claimed.
Fahrenthold's submission also included his story about Trump's raunchy behind-the-scenes comments during a 2005 taping of "Access Hollywood" in 2005. The footage rocked the White House race and prompted a rare apology from the then-candidate.
In another election-related prize, Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer for commentary for columns that "connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation's most divisive political campaigns," judges said.
American journalism's most distinguished prizes also recognised work that shed light on international financial intrigue and held local officials accountable.
The New York Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer for public service for uncovering how authorities used an obscure law, originally enacted to crack down on prostitution in Times Square in the 1970s, to oust hundreds of people, mostly poor minorities, from their homes.
"Thanks to this investigation, New York now sees how an extremely muscular law, combined with aggressive policing, combined with a lack of counsel, combined with lax judges produced damaging miscarriages of justice," Daily News Editor in Chief Arthur Browne said. The Daily News reporter credited with most of the work was Sarah Ryley.
ProPublica's managing editor, Robin Fields, said the joint effort was "the type of collaboration that ProPublica had in mind when our newsroom launched nine years ago." ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit organisation that does investigative reporting.
The New York Times' staff received the international reporting award for its work on Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to project Moscow's power abroad. The award in feature writing went to the Times' C.J. Chivers for a story about a Marine's descent into violence after returning home from war, told "through an artful accumulation of fact and detail," the judges said.
Winners ranged from partnerships spanning hundreds of reporters to newspapers as small as The Storm Lake Times, a twice-weekly, 3,000-circulation family-owned paper in Iowa. The paper's Art Cullen won the editorial writing award for challenging powerful corporate agricultural interests in the state.
The prize for explanatory reporting went to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and the Miami Herald, which amassed a group of over 400 journalists to examine the leaked "Panama Papers" and expose the way that politicians, criminals and rich people stashed money in offshore accounts.
Eric Eyre of The Charleston Gazette-Mail won the investigative reporting prize for articles showing that drug wholesalers had shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in just six years, a period when 1,728 people fatally overdosed on the painkillers. Eyre obtained U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records that leading drug wholesalers had fought in court to keep secret.
The staff of the East Bay Times in Oakland, California, received the breaking news reporting award for its coverage of a fire that killed 36 people at a warehouse party and for its follow-up reporting on how local officials hadn't taken action that might have prevented it.
"It's tremendously humbling to be giving the award and have our journalists honoured," said Neil Chase, executive editor of the East Bay Times and the Mercury News in San Jose. At the same time, he said, "You have to pause and realise that 36 people died in the fire, and this story should have never happened."
The staff of The Salt Lake Tribune received the local reporting award for its work on what judges called "the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment" of sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University. The paper said the reporting led to reforms.
Hilton Als, a theatre critic for The New Yorker, won in the criticism category, with judges praising how he strove to connect theatre to the real-world, "shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race." The award in editorial cartooning went to Jim Morin of The Miami Herald.
Freelancer Daniel Berehulak receiving the breaking news photography award for his images, published in The New York Times, documenting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's crackdown on drug dealers and users. Berehulak won the feature photography Pulitzer in 2015 for his work on the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
This year's feature photography winner was E. Jason Wambsgans of the Chicago Tribune, for his portrayal of a 10-year-old boy who had been shot.
In troubled times for newspapers, "the work that wins Pulitzer Prizes reminds us that we are not in a period of decline in journalism. Rather, we are in the midst of a revolution," with new partnerships, technology and media taking the field in new directions, prize administrator Mike Pride said.
The Pulitzers are awarded at Columbia University and handed out in 14 categories of reporting, photography, criticism and commentary by newspapers, magazines and websites.
Arts prizes are awarded in seven categories, including fiction, drama and music. among the arts winners, Colson Whitehead took the fiction prize for "The Underground Railroad," a novel that combined flights of imagination with the grimmest and most realistic detail of 19th-century slavery. Playwright Lynn Nottage won her second drama Pulitzer, for "Sweat."
This is the 101st year of the contest, established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Public service award winners receive a gold medal; the other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.