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The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Commentary

Finalist: Melinda Henneberger of The Kansas City Star

For examining, in spare and courageous writing, institutional sexism and misogyny within her hometown NFL team, her former governor’s office and the Catholic Church.

Nominated Work

Biography

Melinda Henneberger joined The Kansas City Star editorial board in 2017. She has covered crime, local and state government, hospitals, social services, prisons and national politics and worked in Texas, New York and Washington, D.C. For 10 years, she was for a reporter for The New York Times based in New York, Washington and Rome.

She also has worked as a columnist for USA Today and served as a visiting fellow at the Catholic University of America's Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies.

An Illinois native and graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Henneberger earned a graduate degree in European Studies from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, and she has also been a fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

In 2018, she received Scripps Howard’s Walker Stone Award for opinion writing.

Winners

Prize Winner in Commentary in 2019:

Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

For bold columns that exposed the malfeasance and injustice of forcing poor rural Missourians charged with misdemeanor crimes to pay unaffordable fines or be sent to jail. Commentary

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Commentary in 2019:

Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic

For luminous columns that expertly explore the intersection of gender and politics with a personal, yet keenly analytical, point of view.

The Jury

Katti Gray(Chair)

freelance journalist, Monticello, N.Y./Little Rock, Ark.

Mike Fannin

Vice President/Editor, The Kansas City Star; Central Regional Editor, McClatchy

Carlos Lozada*

Associate Editor/Nonfiction Book Critic

Lyle Muller

Executive Director/Editor

Rene Sanchez

Editor

David Von Drehle

Columnist

Amanda Zamora

Chief Audience Officer

Winners in Commentary

2018

John Archibald of Alabama Media Group

For lyrical and courageous commentary that is rooted in Alabama but has a national resonance in scrutinizing corrupt politicians, championing the rights of women and calling out hypocrisy.
2017

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.
2016

Farah Stockman

For extensively reported columns that probe the legacy of busing in Boston and its effect on education in the city with a clear eye on ongoing racial contradictions.
2015

Lisa Falkenberg

For vividly-written, groundbreaking columns about grand jury abuses that led to a wrongful conviction and uncovered other egregious problems in the legal and immigration systems.
See All Commentary

2019 Prize Winners

See All 2019 Winners