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The 2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting
For a distinguished example of coverage of significant issues of local or statewide concern, demonstrating originality and community connection, using any available journalistic tool, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Madison Hopkins of the Better Government Association and Cecilia Reyes of the Chicago Tribune

For a piercing examination of the city’s long history of failed building- and fire-safety code enforcement, which let scofflaw landlords commit serious violations that resulted in dozens of unnecessary deaths.

Cecilia Reyes and Madison Hopkins accept the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. (Eileen Barroso/Columbia University)

Winning Work

Biography

Madison Hopkins was an investigator for the Better Government Association. She received her master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in August 2016. During her time at school, she worked as a research assistant for the Chicago Tribune in the investigative department and contributed to reporting projects at the Invisible Institute and WBEZ.

Cecilia Reyes is a bilingual reporter on the investigative team. She joined the Tribune in 2016. Her work has exposed government failures that contributed to fatal house fires in Chicago, flaws in Illinois’ gun licensing laws and racial disparities in the pricing and loss of drinking water in the region. Reyes was born and raised in Mexico City.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Local Reporting in 2022:

Lulu Ramadan of The Palm Beach Post and Ash Ngu, Maya Miller and Nadia Sussman of ProPublica

For a comprehensive investigation, including interactives and graphics, that revealed dangerous air quality during Florida’s sugar cane harvest season and prompted significant reforms.

Tony Cook, Johnny Magdaleno and Michelle Pemberton of The Indianapolis Star

For their critical examination of Indiana’s “Red Flag” gun law, identifying numerous instances where police and prosecutors had failed to understand and enforce the law.

The Jury

Kathleen Kingsbury(Chair)*

Opinion Editor, The New York Times

Andy Alford

Director of Editorial Recruitment, Training and Career Development, The Texas Tribune

Robert Gehrke

News Columnist, The Salt Lake Tribune

Anita Kumar

Senior Editor, Standards and Ethics, Politico

Mitch Pugh

Executive Editor, Chicago Tribune

Ray Rivera

Executive Editor, The Oklahoman

Marlon A. Walker

Managing Editor, Local, The Marshall Project

Winners in Local Reporting

2021

Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi of the Tampa Bay Times

For resourceful, creative reporting that exposed how a powerful and politically connected sheriff built a secretive intelligence operation that harassed residents and used grades and child welfare records to profile schoolchildren.
2020

Staff of The Baltimore Sun

For illuminating, impactful reporting on a lucrative, undisclosed financial relationship between the city’s mayor and the public hospital system she helped to oversee.
2019

Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.

For a damning portrayal of the state’s discriminatory conviction system, including a Jim Crow-era law, that enabled Louisiana courts to send defendants to jail without jury consensus on the accused’s guilt.
2018

Staff of The Cincinnati Enquirer

For a riveting and insightful narrative and video documenting seven days of greater Cincinnati's heroin epidemic, revealing how the deadly addiction has ravaged families and communities.
See All Local Reporting

2022 Prize Winners

Feature Writing

Jennifer Senior of The Atlantic

For an unflinching portrait of a family’s reckoning with loss in the 20 years since 9/11, masterfully braiding the author's personal connection to the story with sensitive reporting that reveals the long reach of grief.
See All 2022 Winners