On the afternoon of Monday, May 4, the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced — and while this year’s format broke with tradition for understandable reasons, the impressive quality of work on display maintained the award’s tradition. Writing at Poynter, Ren LaForme noted that the announcement, usually held at Columbia University, came to viewers this year via the living room of administrator Dana Canedy.
Besides this break from tradition, the recipients echoed years past — citing bold investigative work and incisive commentary from newspapers large and small. The New York Times‘ Brian Rosenthal received the award for investigative reporting. He was cited for “an exposé of New York City’s taxi industry that showed how lenders profited from predatory loans that shattered the lives of vulnerable drivers, reporting that ultimately led to state and federal investigations and sweeping reforms.”
ProPublica, The New Yorker and the Anchorage Daily News were among the other news organizations hailed for their work this year.
On the “Letters, Drama and Music” side of things, the big winner was Colson Whitehead, for his acclaimed novel The Nickel Boys. The win propels Whitehead into the rarefied world of authors with multiple Pulitzer wins for their fiction — he’s one of only four writers to have accomplished that.
WOW. Congratulations to Colson Whitehead who, in winning his second Pulitzer Prize for fiction (just three years after his first!) becomes only the fourth novelist ever to do so, after Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike.
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) May 4, 2020
The Pulitzer Prizes also awarded a special citation to crusading journalist Ida B. Wells, noting “her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.”
The complete list of winners offers an impressive array of thought-provoking work — offering a memorable exploration of the present condition as well as resonant insight into history.
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