Skip to main content
The 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner in International Reporting
For a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, using any available journalistic tool, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing and Christo Buschek of BuzzFeed News

For a series of clear and compelling stories that used satellite imagery and architectural expertise, as well as interviews with two dozen former prisoners, to identify a vast new infrastructure built by the Chinese government for the mass detention of Muslims. (Moved by the Board from the Explanatory Reporting category, where it was also entered and nominated.)

Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing and Christo Buschek accept the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. (Jose Lopez/The Pulitzer Prizes)

Winning Work

Biography

Megha Rajagopalan is an award-winning international correspondent for BuzzFeed News, based in London. She has been a staff correspondent for BuzzFeed News based in China and Thailand as well as in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and before that she was a political correspondent for Reuters in China. She has reported from 23 countries in Asia and the Middle East on stories ranging from the North Korean nuclear crisis to the peace process in Afghanistan. Her work has been translated into 7 languages, been taught in classrooms at Columbia and NYU, and was anthologized in 2018's What Future: The Year's Best Writing on What's Next for People, Technology, and the Planet.

Alison Killing is a licensed architect and geospatial analyst who uses maps and data to investigate urgent social issues.

Christo Buschek is a programmer and digital security trainer. He builds tools tailored for data journalists and human rights defenders.
 

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in International Reporting in 2021:

BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Washington, D.C.

For a massive reporting project that yielded sweeping revelations about the ongoing role of some of the world’s biggest banks in facilitating international money laundering and the trafficking of goods and people, corruption that continues to frustrate regulators across the world.

Staff of The New York Times

For a masterful synthesis of stellar writing, powerful images and engaging interactives that illustrated how the world was unprepared for a fast-moving global pandemic — and failed to contain it.

Staff of The Wall Street Journal

For an authoritative and deeply reported portrait of China’s nationalist leader Xi Jinping and his increasingly authoritarian control of the state, its economy, and politics, conducted even after the news organization was expelled from the country.

The Jury

Sewell Chan(Chair)

Editorial Page Editor, Los Angeles Times

Hannah Dreier*

National Reporter, The Washington Post

Indira Lakshmanan

Senior Executive Editor, News/Features, National Geographic Partners

Marjorie Miller

Vice President/Global Enterprise Editor, Associated Press

Nancy San Martin

Freelance Editor/Writer, Miami, Fla.

Winners in International Reporting

2017

The New York Times Staff

For agenda-setting reporting on Vladimir Putin’s efforts to project Russia’s power abroad, revealing techniques that included assassination, online harassment and the planting of incriminating evidence on opponents.
See All International Reporting

2021 Prize Winners

See All 2021 Winners