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For a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, using any available journalistic tool, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Staff of Reuters, with notable contributions from Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo

For expertly exposing the military units and Buddhist villagers responsible for the systematic expulsion and murder of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, courageous coverage that landed its reporters in prison.

Staff members from Reuters (from left: Simon Lewis, Kyaw Soe Oo, Poppy McPherson, Antoni Slodkowski, Shoon Naing and Wa Lone) accept a 2019 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. (Eileen Barroso/Columbia University)

Winning Work

February 8, 2018

Biography

Wa Lone, who joined Reuters in July 2016, has covered a range of in-depth stories in Myanmar, including land grabs by the powerful military and the murder of prominent politician Ko Ni, as well as uncovering evidence of killings by soldiers in the northeast. His reporting on the crisis that erupted in northwestern Rakhine state in October 2016 won him a joint honorable mention from the Society of Publishers in Asia in its annual awards.

Wa Lone previously worked for the Myanmar Times, where he covered Myanmar’s historic 2015 elections, and the weekly People’s Age, where his editor was Myanmar’s current Minister of Information Pe Myint.
Wa Lone co-founded the Third Story Project, a charitable foundation that produces and distributes stories that aim to promote tolerance between Myanmar's different ethnic groups, and is involved in projects working with orphans. He also wrote a children's book, The Gardener, a story in Burmese and English with an environmental message that draws on his own rural roots.

Wa Lone met his wife while working at the Myanmar Times.

Kyaw Soe Oo has worked with Reuters from Myanmar since September 2017. He has covered the impact of the August 25 attacks on police and army posts in the northern Rakhine, and reported from the central part of the state where local Buddhists have been enforcing segregation between Rohingya and Rakhine communities.

He previously worked for Root Investigation Agency, a local news outlet focused on Rakhine issues. Kyaw Soe Oo started his reporting career with the online Rakhine Development News.

Kyaw Soe Oe, an ethnic Rakhine Buddhist, grew up in the state capital Sittwe.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in International Reporting in 2019:

Rescinded

The International Reporting Pulitzer jury chose a New York Times story and accompanying podcast, “Caliphate,” as one of three finalists in the category. In 2020, after Canadian authorities charged a figure profiled in the entry with perpetrating a terrorist hoax, an internal Times investigation concluded that the work failed its "standards for accuracy.” The Pulitzer Prize Board accepted withdrawal of the entry as an appropriate resolution of this matter.

The Jury

Ethan Bronner(Chair)

Senior Editor

Brian Carovillano

Vice President/Managing Editor

Jonathan Kaufman*

Director, School of Journalism

Marc S. Lacey

Associate Managing Editor/National Editor

Mark Whitaker

author, journalist and editor, New York, N.Y.

Winners in International Reporting

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.

Alissa J. Rubin

For thoroughly reported and movingly written accounts giving voice to Afghan women who were forced to endure unspeakable cruelties.

The New York Times Staff

For courageous front-line reporting and vivid human stories on Ebola in Africa, engaging the public with the scope and details of the outbreak while holding authorities accountable.

2019 Prize Winners