Pulitzer Prizes Awarded for Coverage of N.S.A. Secrets and Boston Bombing

9 years, 11 months ago - April 16, 2014
Pulitzer Prizes Awarded for Coverage of N.S.A. ..
The Washington Post and Guardian U.S. on Monday won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, among the most prestigious awards in journalism, for their articles based on National Security Agency documents leaked by the former government contractor Edward J. Snowden.

Through a series of reports that exposed the N.S.A.’s widespread domestic surveillance program, The Post and Guardian U.S. set off an international debate on the limits of government surveillance. The papers also came under heavy criticism by the American and British governments, with lawmakers accusing them of compromising national security.

The Pulitzer board said that it gave the award for the “authoritative and insightful reports that helped the public understand how the disclosures fit into the larger framework of national security.”

David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, who was not a Pulitzer judge, said that the story was “the epitome of important reporting and the epitome of what public service in journalism is all about.”

The Boston Globe won the breaking news prize for its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people and wounded at least 260. Tuesday is the first anniversary of the blast.

In the literature categories, the fiction prize went to Donna Tartt for “The Goldfinch,” which was described by the Pulitzer committee as “a beautifully written coming-of-age novel with exquisitely drawn characters that follows a grieving boy’s entanglement with a small famous painting.”

The New York Times won two awards, both for photography. Tyler Hicks won the breaking news photography prize for his coverage of a terrorist attack at an upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya, that left more than 60 people dead. Josh Haner won the feature photography award for his images of the painstaking recovery of a Boston Marathon bombing survivor.

Also notable this year was the absence of a prize in the feature writing category. The decision was “not a comment on a state of feature writing,” said Sig Gissler, the administrator of the prizes for Columbia University. The rules require that an entry get a majority vote from the committee, he said. The three finalists “after careful consideration,” he said, did not get there. The decision was not unique, Mr. Gissler said. In 2012 there was no award for fiction, for an 11th time in that category’s history. No feature writing award was given in 2004.

The Washington Post won a second award, for explanatory journalism. Eli Saslow, 31, a staff writer, won for a series of articles on American families that rely on the federal food stamp program. The Post’s awards arrived under the leadership of a new executive editor, Martin Baron, who took the paper’s top job in January 2013, and a new owner, the Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, who bought the paper last summer.

Mr. Baron said that the two prizes his paper had won were for articles he considered “tremendously important.” The articles that won the public service award, he said, did not “need vindication.”

 “The reporting was solid in every way,” Mr. Baron said. “It delved into an overwhelmingly important subject, one that had been kept secret from the American public.”

Jason Szep and Andrew R. C. Marshall of Reuters won the international reporting prize for coverage of the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority, in Myanmar.

The investigative reporting prize was won by Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity, for reporting on coal miners with black lung as they struggled against the system. Will Hobson and Michael LaForgia of The Tampa Bay Times won the local reporting prize for a series on housing for the homeless. David Philipps of The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., won the national reporting prize for articles on wounded veterans.

The prize for general nonfiction was awarded to “Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation” by Dan Fagin, a book about a New Jersey seashore town’s cluster of childhood cancers linked to water and air pollution. The drama prize went to “The Flick” by Annie Baker, a play focusing on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater.

In the Public Service category, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian in London, said he hoped that the prize might lead American authorities to reassess their position on Mr. Snowden, who has been charged by the United States and has sought asylum in Russia.

 “It’s about time there was a more grown-up discussion about what he’s done,” Mr. Rusbridger said. “Treating this as though it was simply a criminal matter is not an adequate response.”

 

Text by The New York Times

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