New York: A Florida newspaper was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for its coverage of failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
The Sun Sentinel of South Florida won the award for public service reporting.
Dana Canedy, the prize administrator also expressed her admiration for student journalists who published obituaries in their schoolpaper of the 17 people who were killed in the Valentine’s Day 2018 shooting.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette was honoured for its breaking news coverage of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in October.
A Wall Street Journal investigation that exposed payments made by US President Donald Trump during his campaign to two women who claimed to have had affairs with him won the prize for national reporting.
Lorenzo Tugnoli’s pictures of famine in Yemen gained The Washington Post the feature photography prize.
Also focusing on Yemen, journalists from The Associated Press were awarded for a year-long series about the atrocities of war in the country.
They jointly won the international reporting accolade for the coverage, alongside staff from news agency Reuters, who exposed those responsible for brutal treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Jailed Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were also acknowledged for their notable contributions to the “courageous coverage that landed its reporters in prison.”
Fourteen of the categories are dedicated to journalistic achievements, while the remaining seven are focused on the wider arts.
Richard Powers won the fiction prize for his novel The Overstory, which features a cast of nine characters who are linked by a passion for trees and attempts to stop the destruction of forests.
The judges described as “a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance.”
Composer Ellen Reid was awarded the music prize for her operatic album “prism.”
In a special citation, singer Aretha Franklin was posthumously recognized for her contribution to American music and culture.
A jury based at New York’s Columbia University is tasked with choosing the winners.
Last year’s winners included journalists from the New Yorker and New York Times who exposed allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and Kendrick Lamar, who was the first rapper to receive the music prize.
— dpa
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