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The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Editorial Writing
For distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, using any available journalistic tool, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Brent Staples of The New York Times

For editorials written with extraordinary moral clarity that charted the racial fault lines in the United States at a polarizing moment in the nation’s history.

Brent Staples accepts the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. (Eileen Barroso/Columbia University)

Winning Work

Biography

Brent Staples has been a member of the New York Times editorial board since 1990. His editorials and essays are included in dozens of college readers throughout the United States and abroad. Before joining the editorial page, he served as an editor of The New York Times Book Review and an assistant editor for metropolitan news.

Mr. Staples holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago and is author of "Parallel Time," a memoir, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Editorial Writing in 2019:

Editorial Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.

For persuasive editorials that prompted Louisiana voters to abolish a Jim Crow-era law that undermined equal justice in the jury system.

Editorial Staff of the Capital Gazette, Annapolis, Md.

For deeply personal editorials that reflected on gun violence, loss and recovery following a newsroom attack that left five of the writers’ colleagues dead.

The Jury

Jelani Cobb(Chair)

Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism, Columbia University; Staff Writer, The New Yorker

Matthew Carroll

Professor of the Practice of Journalism

Susan Goldberg

Editor-in-Chief

Brant Houston

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting

Laura A. Kiernan

Editorial Board Member

Winners in Editorial Writing

2018

Andie Dominick of The Des Moines Register

For examining in a clear, indignant voice, free of cliché or sentimentality, the damaging consequences for poor Iowa residents of privatizing the state’s administration of Medicaid.
2017

Art Cullen

For editorials fueled by tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing that successfully challenged powerful corporate agricultural interests in Iowa.
2015

Kathleen Kingsbury

For taking readers on a tour of restaurant workers' bank accounts to expose the real price of inexpensive menu items and the human costs of income inequality.
See All Editorial Writing

2019 Prize Winners

See All 2019 Winners