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The 2020 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Breaking News Reporting

Finalist: Staff of The Washington Post

For incisive coverage of back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio that contextualized these events for a national audience. 

Nominated Work

Winners

Prize Winner in Breaking News Reporting in 2020:

Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.

For its rapid coverage of hundreds of last-minute pardons by Kentucky’s governor, showing how the process was marked by opacity, racial disparities and violations of legal norms. (Moved by the jury from Local Reporting, where it was originally entered.) Breaking News Reporting

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Breaking News Reporting in 2020:

Staff of the Los Angeles Times

For dynamic coverage that expertly blended multimedia components, frequent updates and rich narrative to report on a devastating California boat fire that killed 34 people.

The Jury

Zahira Torres(Chair)

Senior Editor, Local Reporting Network, ProPublica

Bill Grueskin

Professor of Professional Practice in Journalism, Columbia University

Akoto Ofori-Atta

Managing Editor, The Trace

Maria Reeve

Managing Editor/Content, Houston Chronicle

Matthew Watkins

Managing Editor, News/Politics, The Texas Tribune

Winners in Breaking News Reporting

2019

Staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.
2018

Staff of The Press Democrat

For lucid and tenacious coverage of historic wildfires that ravaged the city of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, expertly utilizing an array of tools, including photography, video and social media platforms, to bring clarity to its readers — in real time and in subsequent in-depth reporting.
2017

Staff

For relentless coverage of the “Ghost Ship” fire, which killed 36 people at a warehouse party, and for reporting after the tragedy that exposed the city’s failure to take actions that might have prevented it.
2016

Los Angeles Times Staff

For exceptional reporting, including both local and global perspectives, on the shooting in San Bernardino and the terror investigation that followed.
See All Breaking News Reporting

2020 Prize Winners

Commentary

Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times

For a sweeping, provocative and personal essay for the ground-breaking 1619 Project, which seeks to place the enslavement of Africans at the center of America’s story, prompting public conversation about the nation’s founding and evolution.
Criticism

Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times

For work demonstrating extraordinary community service by a critic, applying his expertise and enterprise to critique a proposed overhaul of the L.A. County Museum of Art and its effect on the institution’s mission.
See All 2020 Winners