Pulitzer Prize is an annual US-based award given for outstanding contribution and achievement in journalism, letters, and music. The first prize was awarded in May 1917. The prize pass on with a gift of $500,000 is met by the income from a trust fund left by Joseph Pulitzer to the trustees of Columbia University. There are prizes for fiction, drama, US history, biography, poetry, and musical composition.
The prizes have varied in number and category over the years but currently number 14 prizes in the field of journalism, 6 prizes in letters, and 1 prize in music.
The most prestigious award for US-based journalists and organisations, have been announced after being postponed due to the spread of COVID-19. This year, Pulitzer Prize 2020 winners were announced on Monday via a live-stream on YouTube instead of being held at Columbia University’s journalism school in New York City.
Here’s the full list of Pulitzer Prize 2020 winners:
JOURNALISM
Breaking News Reporting: Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky
Finalists: Staff of the Los Angeles Times, Staff of The Washington Post
Investigative Reporting: Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times NYT
Finalists: Jay Hancock and Elizabeth Lucas of Kaiser Health News, Staff of The Wall Street Journal
Explanatory Reporting: Staff of The Washington Post
Finalists: Rosanna Xia, Swetha Kannan and Terry Castleman of the Los Angeles Times, Staff of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting
Local Reporting: Staff of The Baltimore Sun
Finalists: Peter Smith, Stephanie Strasburg and Shelly Bradbury of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Staff of The Boston Globe
National Reporting: ProPublica (Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi) and The Seattle Times (Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb)
Finalists: Staff of The Wall Street Journal
International Reporting: Staff of The New York Times
Finalists: Staff of Reuters, Staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing: Ben Taub of The New Yorker
Finalists: Chloe Cooper Jones, freelance reporter for The Verge, Ellen Barry of The New York Times, Nestor Ramos of The Boston Globe
Commentary: Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times
Finalists: Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post, Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times
Criticism: Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times
Finalists: Justin Davidson of New York magazine, Soraya Nadia McDonald of The Undefeated
Editorial Writing: Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine Herald Press
Finalists: Jill Burcum of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Melinda Henneberger of The Kansas City Star
Editorial Cartooning: Barry Blitt, contributor, The New Yorker
Finalists: Kevin Kallaugher, freelancer, Lalo Alcaraz, freelancer, Matt Bors of The Nib
Breaking News Photography: Photography Staff of Reuters
Finalists: Dieu Nalio Chery and Rebecca Blackwell of Associated Press, Tom Fox of The Dallas Morning News
Feature Photography: Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of Associated Press
Finalists: Erin Clark of The Boston Globe, Mary F. Calvert, freelance photographer
Audio Reporting: Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer for Vice News
Finalists: Andrew Beck Grace, Chip Brantley, Graham Smith, Nicole Beemsterboer and Robert Little of NPR White Lies, Nigel Poor, Earlonne Woods and Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle
Public Service: Anchorage Daily News in collaboration with ProPublica
Finalists: The New York Times, The Washington Post
BOOKS, DRAMA & MUSIC
Drama: A Strange Loop by Michael R. Jackson
Finalists: Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery, Soft Power by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori
History: Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel
Finalists: Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Gandin
Biography: Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser
Finalists: Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer, Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, And Me by Deirdre Bair
Poetry: The Tradition by Jericho Brown
Finalists: Dunce by Mary Ruefle, Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems by Dorianne Laux
General Nonfiction: The Undying: Pain Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer and Care by Anne Boyer and The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin
Finalists: Elderhood: Refining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson, Solitary by Albert Woodfox and Leslie George
Music: The Central Park Five by Anthony Davis
Finalists: and all the days were purple by Alex Weiser, Sky: Concerto for Violin by Michael Torke
Fiction: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Finalists: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
Special Citation: Ida B. Wells
