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The 2017 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Explanatory Reporting

Finalist: Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu, Lauren Kirchner and Terry Parris Jr. of ProPublica

For a rigorous examination that used data journalism and lucid writing to make tangible the abstract world of algorithms and how they shape our lives in realms as disparate as criminal justice, online shopping and social media.

Nominated Work

Biography

Julia Angwin is a senior reporter at ProPublica. From 2000 to 2013, she was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she led a privacy investigative team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2011 and won a Gerald Loeb Award in 2010. Her book "Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance," was published by Times Books in 2014, and was shortlisted for Best Business Book of the Year by the Financial Times.

Also in 2014, Julia was named reporter of the year by the Newswomen’s Club of New York. In 2003, she was on a team of reporters at The Wall Street Journal that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for coverage of corporate corruption. She is also the author of Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America (Random House, March 2009). She earned a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University.

Jeff Larson is ProPublica's data editor. He is a winner of the Livingston Award for the 2011 series Redistricting: How Powerful Interests are Drawing You Out of a Vote.

Surya Mattu is a contributing researcher at ProPublica. He was a fellow at Data&Society and has worked as an engineer at Bell Labs. He is a graduate from the New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He has a degree from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

 

Lauren Kirchner is a senior reporting fellow at ProPublica. She has covered digital security and press freedom issues for the Columbia Journalism Review, and crime and criminal justice for Pacific Standard magazine. She began her journalism career at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. She has a B.A. in philosophy from Wesleyan University, and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she received the Louis Winnick Prize for reporting and a Pulitzer Travel Fellowship.

Terry Parris Jr. is ProPublica's engagement editor. Prior to joining ProPublica, he led digital production and engagement at WDET 101.9 FM, NPR’s affiliate in Detroit.

 

 

Winners

Prize Winner in Explanatory Reporting in 2017:

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and Miami Herald

For the Panama Papers, a series of stories using a collaboration of more than 300 reporters on six continents to expose the hidden infrastructure and global scale of offshore tax havens. (Moved by the Board from the International Reporting category, where it was entered.) Explanatory Reporting

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Explanatory Reporting in 2017:

Joan Garrett McClane and Joy Lukachick Smith

For an examination of the income inequality hiding behind Chattanooga’s rise as the shining star of the South – reporting that combined data, research and human stories to render a full picture of poverty.

Staff

For a deep and sensitive exploration of gender worldwide, using remarkable photography, moving video and clear writing to illuminate a subject that is at once familiar and misunderstood.

The Jury

Gilbert Bailon(Chair)

Editor

Neela Banerjee

Senior Reporter

Jane Harrigan

Former Professor of Journalism

Deborah Henley

Editor

Scott Klein

Deputy Managing Editor

Shazna Nessa

Director of Journalism

Geordie Wilson

Publisher

Winners in Explanatory Reporting

2015

Zachary R. Mider

For a painstaking, clear and entertaining explanation of how so many U.S. corporations dodge taxes and why lawmakers and regulators have a hard time stopping them.
2014

Eli Saslow

For his unsettling and nuanced reporting on the prevalence of food stamps in post-recession America, forcing readers to grapple with issues of poverty and dependency.
2013

Staff

For its penetrating look into business practices by Apple and other technology companies that illustrates the darker side of a changing global economy for workers and consumers.
See All Explanatory Reporting

2017 Prize Winners

Feature Writing

C. J. Chivers

For showing, through an artful accumulation of fact and detail, that a Marine’s postwar descent into violence reflected neither the actions of a simple criminal nor a stereotypical case of PTSD.
Commentary

Peggy Noonan

For rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.
Criticism

Hilton Als

For bold and original reviews that strove to put stage dramas within a real-world cultural context, particularly the shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race.
Editorial Writing

Art Cullen

For editorials fueled by tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing that successfully challenged powerful corporate agricultural interests in Iowa.
See All 2017 Winners