Pulitzer Prize: News organizations take top prizes
NEW YORK – The Washington Post has won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
The Post’s staff was honored Monday for creating and using a national database to illustrate how often and why police shoot to kill.
The Post found that in 2015, on-duty police officers shot and killed 990 people nationwide. It reported that unarmed black men were seven times more likely to die at the hands of police officers than unarmed whites were. More than 50 of the officers had killed someone before.
Public Service
The Associated Press has won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for articles documenting the use of slave labor in the commercial seafood industry in Indonesia and Thailand.
The award was announced Monday at Columbia University in New York City.
AP journalists Margie Mason, Robin McDowell, Martha Mendoza and Esther Htusan documented how men from Myanmar and other countries were imprisoned, sometimes in cages, in Indonesia and forced to work on vessels that sent seafood to Thailand.
The project involved interviewing captives and tracking slave-caught seafood to processing plants that supply supermarkets, restaurants and pet stores in the U.S.
Investigative reporting
The Tampa Bay Times and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune have won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for a project on mental hospitals.
The Tampa Bay Times also won the local reporting category for studying the effects of education in Pinellas County, Florida, when schools in poor neighborhoods were essentially desegregated and neglected.
Music
“In for a Penny, In for a Pound” by Henry Threadgill has won the Pulitzer Prize for music.
Judges described the recording as “a highly original work in which notated music and improvisation mesh in a sonic tapestry that seems the very expression of modern American life.”
Other finalists included “The Blind Banister” by Timo Andres and “The Mechanics: Six from the Shop Floor” by Carter Pann.
Drama
“Hamilton,” the hip-hop stage biography of Alexander Hamilton, has won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
The dazzling, exuberant musical by creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda has captured popular consciousness like few Broadway shows, having already won a Grammy Award, a spot on the Billboard 200 charts and mentions on “Saturday Night Live.” It’s a leading favorite in this summer’s Tony Awards.
The musical tells the story of how an orphan emigrant from the Caribbean rose to the highest ranks of American society, as told by a young African-American and Latino cast.
It becomes the ninth musical to win the drama award, joining such shows as “South Pacific,” “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Rent.” The last musical to nab the prize was “Next to Normal” in 2010.
Poetry
“Ozone Journal” by Peter Balakian has won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
The Pulitzer board said Monday that Balakian’s poems “bear witness to the old losses and tragedies that undergird a global age of danger and uncertainty.”
Finalists in the category were “Alive: New and Selected Poems” by Elizabeth Willis and “Four-Legged Girl” by Diane Seuss.
General nonfiction
“Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS” by Joby Warrick has won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.
Warrick is a journalist with the Washington Post and a previous Pulitzer winner. The Pulitzer board says he was honored for “a deeply reported book of remarkable clarity showing how the flawed rationale for the Iraq War led to the explosive growth of the Islamic State.”
Warrick also won the Pulitzer in 1996 as part of a team reporting on the environmental and health risks of waste disposal systems used in North Carolina’s growing hog industry.
Finalists were “Between the World and Me,” the much-celebrated work by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and “If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran” by Carla Power.
Background
This is the contest’s 100th year. The winners are being revealed at Columbia University.
The Pulitzer Prizes recognize the best journalism of 2015 in newspapers, magazines and websites. There are 14 categories for reporting, photography, criticism and commentary.
In the arts, prizes are awarded in seven categories, including fiction, drama and music.