On May 6, Columbia University announced the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes, honoring excellence in journa♍lism, literature, drama, and music. These prestigious awards recognize American achievements and were prᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚesented this year amidst campus protests concerning the Gaza War.
Against a backdrop of heightened tensions, the 108th Pulitzer Prizes high🃏lighted American achievements. The Pulitzer Board a𒊎cknowledged the bravery of student journalists covering𒁃 these protests.
Last year, twenty-three prizes were awarded🐬, with most recipients receiving a cash prize of $15,000 and the news organization winning the Public Service Prize receiving a gold medal. This year twenty-four prizes were given. Here’s the complete list of winners:
Journalism
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Public Service
Winner: ProPublica
For “groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court” Josh🌠ua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murph⛎y, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg.
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Breaking News
Winner: Staff of Lookout Santa Cruz
For “its detailed and nimble community-focused coverage, over a holiday weekend, of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that displaced thousands of residents a🉐nd destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Investigative Reporting
Winner: Hannah Dreier of The New York Times
For “a deeply repoജrted series of stories revealing the stunning reach of migrant child labor across the United States — and the corporate and governmental failures that perpetuate it.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Explanatory Reporting
Winner: Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker
Her work, as described by the committee, was a “searing indictment of our legal system’s reliance on the felony murder c🐷harge and its disparate consequences, often devastating for communities of color.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Local Reporting
Winners: Sarah Conway of City Bureau and💫 Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible 🌺Institute
For “their investigative series on m🉐issing Black girls and women in Chicago that revealed how systemic racism and police department n𝓀eglect contributed to the crisis.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For National Reporting
Winners: Staff of Reuters and Staff of The Washing🌜ton Post
The staff of R🃏euters for “an eye-opening series of accountability stories” focused on the automobile and aerospace businesses helmed by𝓀 the billionaire Elon Musk.
The staff of The Washington Post for “its sobering examination of the AR✱-15 semiautomatic rifle.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For International Reporting
Winner: Staff of The New York Times
For its “wide-ranging and revelᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚatory coverage of Hamas’ lethal attack in sout𒐪hern Israel on Oct. 7, Israel’s intelligence failures and the Israeli military’s sweeping, deadly response in Gaza.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Feature Writing
Winner: Katie Engelhart, contributing writer, ꦇThe New York Tiꦚmes
For “her fair-minded portrait of a family’s legal and emotional struggles during a matriarch’s progressiv🥀e dementia.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Commentary
Winner: Vladim💞ir Karꦯa-Murza, contributor, The Washington Post
For “passionate columns written at great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequen꧅ces of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a de𓆉mocratic future for his country.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Criticism
Winner: Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times
The committee said that his film criticism “reflects on the contemporary movie-going experience,” praising it as “ric𝐆hly evocative and genre-spann꧙ing.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Editorial Writing
Winner: David E. Hoffman of The Washington Post
For “compelling and well-researched series on new technologies and the tactics authoritarian regimes use to repress dissent in the digital age♊ and how they can be fought.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Illustrated Reporting And Commentary
Winner: Medar de la Cruz, contributor, The New Yorker
For “his visually driven story set inside Rikers Island jail using bold black-and-white images that humanize the prisoners 🎉and staff through their hunger for books.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Breaking News Photography
Winner: Photography staff of Reuters
For “rꩲaw and urgent photographs documenting the Oct. 🐻7 deadly attack in Israel by Hamas and the first weeks of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Feature Photography
Winner: Photography Staff of The Associated Press
For “poignant photographs chronicling unprecedented masses of mꦗigrants and their arduous journey north from Colombia to the border of the United States.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Audio Reporting
Winner: Staffs of the Invisible Institute and USG Audio
For a “powerful series that revisits a Chicago hate crime from the 1990s, a fl꧂uid 🌠amalgam of memoir, community history and journalism.”
Books, Drama and Music
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Fiction
Winner: “Night Watch”, by Jayne Anne Phillips
For her “beautifully rendered novel set in West Virginia’s T🍸rans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War wh🍌ere a severely wounded Union veteran, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, long abused by a Confederate soldier, struggle to heal.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Drama
Winner: “Primary Trust,” by Eboni Booth
The committee described her play as “a simple and elegantly crafted story of an emotionally damaged man who finds a new job, new friends and a ne𒐪w sense of worth, illustrating how small acts of kindness can change a person’s life and enrich an entire community.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For History
Winner: “No Right t𓃲o an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era,” by J🦹acqueline Jones
For her “original rec🧜onstruction of free Black life in Boston that profoundly reshap♉es our understanding of the city’s abolitionist legacy and the challenging reality for its Black residents.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Biography
Winners: “King: A Life” by Jonathan Eig, and “Master Slave H❀usband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom,” by Ilyon Woo
Jonathan Eig was won the prize for “a revelatory portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. that draws on new sou🐭rces to enrich our understanding of each stage of the civil rights leader’s life.”
Ilyon Woo won for her narrative of the Crafts, “an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia in 1848, wiಌth light-skinne🐷d Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Memoir Or Autobiography
Winner: “Liliana’s Invi🉐ncible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice,” by Cristina Rivera Garza
The committee described Ms. Rivera Garza's work as a "genre-bending portrayal of the author's sister, who tragically lost her life at the hands of a former partner." They noted that it blends elements of memoir, feminist investigative journalism, and poetic biography, demonstrating a steadfast resolve arising from the author's personal grie💧f.
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Poetry
Winner: “Tripas: Poems,” by Brandon Som
The committee praised her work as “a collection that deeply engages with the complexities of the poe✤t’s dual Mexican and Chinese heritage, highlighting the dignity of his family’s working lives, creating community rather than conflict.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For General Non-Fiction
Winner: “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy,” by N🐭athan Thrall
For his “finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation o෴f the West Bank, told through a portrait of a Palestinian father whose 5-year-old son dies🌸 in a fiery school bus crash when Israeli and Palestinian rescue teams are delayed by security regulations.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Music
Winner: “Adagio (For Wadada Leo 🥀Smith),” by Tyshawn Sorey
The committee described Mr. Sorey's saxophone concerto as featuring "a diverse array of textures showcased in a leisurely pace, offering a delicate tribute that is subt𝐆ly powerful, valuing closeness over grandeur."
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Special Citations
Winner: Greg Tate
The committee recognized Greg Tate posthumously for his significant impact on shaping ꦚpublic discourse and language regarding hip-hop and street art. "His unique aesthetic, groundbreaking contributions, and intellectual creativity, notably in his pioneering hip-hop critiques, remain influential for future generations, particularly among writers and critics from diverse backgrounds," the committee said.
