On May 6, Columbia University announced the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes, honoring excellence in journalism, literature, drama, and music. These prestigious awards recognize American achievements and were presented this year amidst campus protests concerning the Gaza War.
Against a backdrop of heightened tensions, the 108th Pulitzer Prizes highlighted American achievements. The Pulitzer Board acknowledged the bravery of student journalists covering 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” Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, 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 and 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 reported 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 charge 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 missing Black girls and women in Chicago that revealed how systemic racism and police department neglect contributed to the crisis.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For National Reporting
Winners: Staff of Reuters and Staff of The Washington Post
The staff of Reuters for “an eye-opening series of accountability stories” focused on the automobile and aerospace businesses helmed by 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 revelatory coverage of Hamas’ lethal attack in southern 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, The New York Times
For “her fair-minded portrait of a family’s legal and emotional struggles during a matriarch’s progressive dementia.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Commentary
Winner: Vladimir Kara-Murza, contributor, The Washington Post
For “passionate columns written at great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic 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 “richly evocative and genre-spanning.”
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 “raw 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 migrants 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 fluid 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 Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War where 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 new 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 to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era,” by Jacqueline Jones
For her “original reconstruction of free Black life in Boston that profoundly reshapes 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 Husband 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 sources 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, with light-skinned Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant.”
Pulitzer Prize 2024 For Memoir Or Autobiography
Winner: “Liliana’s Invincible 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 grief.
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 poet’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 Nathan Thrall
For his “finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation of 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 subtly 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 public 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.
