Washington Post and Guardian Share Pulitzer Prize

The Guardian and Washington Post have been awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize on Monday In New York for public service journalism for their stories of US National Security Agency’s mass surveillance activities based on the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The prizes were administered by by a nineteen member panel of the Columbia University Journalism School. The awards were given in twenty two categories this year. The NSA reporting was led by Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and film-maker Laura Poitras for Guardian and by Barton Gellman for Washington Post who also cooperated with Poitras. All four journalists were honored with a George Polk Journalism award last week for their work on the NSA story.

The Boston Globe received the Pulitzer for its breaking “exhaustive and empathetic” coverage of the Boston marathon bombings and the ensuing manhunt that enveloped the city. The Gazette in Colorado was awarded for its examination of mistreatment of wounded combat veterans. The Reuters won the prize for international reporting for covering the persecution of a Muslim minority group called Rohingyas in Burma, also known as Myanmar.  Tyler Hicks of the New York Times won the award for breaking news photography for images captured during a terrorist attack at Westgate Mall in Kenya. Josh Haner of the Times won in the feature photography category for a “moving” essay on a Boston Marathon bomb blast victim who lost most of both legs.

In a statement published by the Guardian, Edward Snowden called the award “a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government”.  The Pulitzers have been bestowed since 1917, at the bequest of the legendary newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer who established the honor in his will as a means of encouraging publicly-spirited journalism.

Infoeditor