(New York) The war in Gaza was at the heart of the Pulitzer Prizes awarded Monday, the annual American press and literature awards giving special mention to journalists covering the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
THE New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for international journalism “for its extensive and revealing coverage of the lethal Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7” as well as for its coverage “of the massive and deadly response by the Israeli armed forces.”
The Reuters news agency won an award in the news photography category for its “raw and immediate” coverage of the October 7 attack and Israel’s retaliation.
And “journalists and media workers covering the war in Gaza” were recognized with a special mention.
PHOTO MARVIN JOSEPH, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Part of the team Washington Post celebrating their three Pulitzer Prizes.
“This conflict has also cost the lives of poets and writers,” explains the Pulitzer Committee, an organ of Columbia University.
The prestigious New York university, which has become the epicenter of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on American campuses, is in the midst of controversy.
Columbia management called on the police at the end of April to dislodge students who had set up a camp, then a few days later to remove demonstrators who had barricaded themselves in a building.
The police severely restricted press access to these operations and threatened to arrest student journalists who wanted to cover the event.
In an article published this weekend, two managers of the Columbia student newspaper accused the university administration of having “repressed” the journalistic work of students, in particular by demanding that they hand over certain videos and photos of events.
This edition of the Pulitzer Prizes also honored the imprisoned Russian opponent Vladimir Kara-Mourza “for his passionate articles written at the risk of his life from his prison cell”, highlighting the risks taken by “dissidence in Vladimir’s Russia Putin” and “pleading for a democratic future in his country”.
PHOTO JABIN BOTSFORD, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza
Collaborator of Washington PostVladimir Kara-Mourza is serving a 25-year prison sentence, to which he was sentenced in April 2023 in particular for “treason” and disseminating “false information”, in the midst of repression of critical voices of the Kremlin.
The 2024 edition of the Pulitzer Prizes also recognized American journalists who investigated migrant child labor, racial disparities in the American justice system and gun violence.
Author Jayne Anne Philipps won the Best Fiction Prize for her novel Nightwatch, about a mother and daughter in the post-Civil War era. The prize for best non-fiction went to Nathan Thrall for A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy.