For a distinguished portfolio of editorial cartoons or other illustrated work (still, animated, or both) characterized by political insight, editorial effectiveness, or public service value, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Medar de la Cruz, contributor, The New Yorker

For his visually-driven story set inside Rikers Island jail using bold black-and-white images that humanize the prisoners and staff through their hunger for books.

Medar de la Cruz (right) accepts the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary from Columbia University Interim President Katrina Armstrong. (David Dini/The Pulitzer Prizes)

Winning Work

May 12, 2023

The Diary of a Rikers Island Library Worker

Biography

Medar de la Cruz is a Dominican-American cartoonist and illustrator born in Miami, Florida, and currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a degree in illustration from Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, California, and has worked as a freelance illustrator for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Beyond the drawing board, Medar contributes part-time to the Outreach Department at the Brooklyn Public Library, where he provides book cart services to incarcerated individuals on Rikers Island. This experience has motivated him to explore the role of journalism in his autobiographical comics. Currently, Medar is working on a graphic novel about his experiences on Rikers to offer insights into spaces that are otherwise inaccessible to the public. In addition to drawing comics, he serves as an educator, sharing his passion for visual communication through community workshops across the city.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Illustrated Reporting and Commentary in 2024:

Angie Wang, contributor, The New Yorker

For a vivid illustrated journey with her toddler that explains how human language learning can never be supplanted by AI.

Claire Healy, Nicole Dungca and Ren Galeno, contributor, of The Washington Post

For masterful and sensitive use of the comic form to reveal the story of a great injustice to a group of Filipinos exhibited at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, where some of them died.

Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press

For a portfolio of deceptively gentle, mostly wordless cartoons full of juxtapositions that ably communicate complex, sophisticated messages.

The Jury

Shazna Nessa(Chair)

Independent Journalist, New York City

Kainaz Amaria

National Visual Enterprise Editor, The Washington Post

Kevin Siers*

Freelance Cartoonist, Salisbury, Md.

Michael Sloan*

Illustrator and Cartoonist, New Haven, Conn.

Aki Soga

Executive Editor, Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

Winners in Illustrated Reporting and Commentary

2023

Mona Chalabi, contributor, The New York Times

For striking illustrations that combine statistical reporting with keen analysis to help readers understand the immense wealth and economic power of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

2022

Fahmida Azim, Anthony Del Col, Josh Adams and Walt Hickey of Insider, New York, N.Y.

For using graphic reportage and the comics medium to tell a powerful yet intimate story of the Chinese oppression of the Uyghurs, making the issue accessible to a wider public.

See All Illustrated Reporting and Commentary

2024 Prize Winners

Explanatory Reporting

Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker

For a searing indictment of our legal system’s reliance on the felony murder charge and its disparate consequences, often devastating for communities of color.

National Reporting

Staff of Reuters

For an eye-opening series of accountability stories focused on Elon Musk’s automobile and aerospace businesses, stories that displayed remarkable breadth and depth and provoked official probes of his companies’ practices in Europe and the United States.

Investigative Reporting

Hannah Dreier of The New York Times

For a deeply reported series of stories revealing the stunning reach of migrant child labor across the United States—and the corporate and governmental failures that perpetuate it.

Commentary

Vladimir Kara-Murza, contributor, The Washington Post

For passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.

See All 2024 Winners