Coverage of Mass Shootings, Trump Corruption & Yemen Among This Year's Pulitzer Prize Winner

It's Pulitzer time and with journalism under assault around the globe, it's especially important to celebrate the finest investigative reporting. As the nation's founders recognized, democracy can't exist without a free and vigorous press.

Often local reporting goes unnoticed nationally, but it's the reason that some local newspapers have thrived while many others have closed. Pulitzer judges recognized the The Advocate of Baton Rouge, LA for its coverage of the state’s discriminatory split-verdict law that allowed the state to jail defendants without a jury’s consensus about guilt and the system's roots in Louisiana's racist past. The states's residents voted in November to overturn the law and require that future juries return unanimous verdicts.

Investigations concerning the plethora of Trump scandals also resulted in numerous awards this year.

Vox: "Reporting on President Donald Trump and the various scandals and accusations of corruption that have dogged him also received recognition. David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner of the New York Times received the honor for explanatory reporting for their story on Trump’s wealth and the tax schemes he and his family engaged in to build their riches. The staff of the Wall Street Journal received the award for national reporting for its work in following Trump’s hush money payments to two women who alleged they had affairs with him ahead of the 2016 election."

Photographer Lorenzo Tugnoli of the Washington Post was awarded the feature photography prize for his heartbreaking images of the famine in Yemen. The Associated Press received the 2019 international Pulitzer for their coverage of the war in that nation.

The Public Service Pulitzer went to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for "exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School."

The Pulitzer judges also awarded the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Md. a special citation honoring their response to the newsroom attack they suffered in June.

And finally, the photography staff of Reuters was recognized for their work on America's southern border and their "vivid and startling visual narrative of the urgency, desperation and sadness of migrants as they journeyed to the U.S. from Central and South America."

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