2 Indian journalists win Pulitzer Prize for highlighting cyberfraud

• Indian journalists Anand R.K. and Suparna Sharma have won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for their work highlighting digital surveillance and cyberfraud.

• Anand and Suparna Sharma won the award in the Illustrated Reporting and Commentary category. They share the award with Natalie Obiko Pearson of Bloomberg.

• The award-winning work titled ‘trAPPed’, produced for Bloomberg, narrates the riveting account of a neurologist in India who was held under a “digital arrest” through her phone, using a blend of visuals and words to underscore the growing global challenges of surveillance and digital scams.

Pulitzer Prize

• The Pulitzer Prizes were established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the School of Journalism in 1912 and to establish the Pulitzer Prizes, which were first awarded in 1917.

• The Pulitzer Prizes are overseen by Columbia University.

• The Pulitzer Board is composed mainly of leading journalists or news executives from media outlets across the US, as well as five academics or persons in the arts. 

• The dean of Columbia Journalism School and the administrator of the Prizes are non-voting members. The chair rotates annually to the most senior member or members. 

• The yearlong process begins with the appointment of distinguished jurors who make three recommendations in each category. 

• The Board makes the final decisions after evaluating all the finalists nominated by the juries and considering jury reports. Prizes are awarded by majority vote of the Board.

• The Gold Medal is awarded each year to the American news organisation that wins the Public Service Prize.

• All other winners receive $15,000.

Some of the winners this year are:

Public Service

The Washington Post - For piercing the veil of secrecy around the Trump administration’s chaotic overhaul of federal agencies and chronicling in rich detail the human impacts of the cuts and the consequences for the country.

Breaking News Reporting

Staff of The Minnesota Star Tribune - For its coverage of a shooting at a back-to-school mass at a catholic school that left two children dead and 17 wounded, powerful stories marked by thoroughness and compassion.

Investigative Reporting

Staff of The New York Times - For deeply reported stories that exposed how President Trump has shattered constraints on conflicts of interest and exploited the moneymaking opportunities that come with power, enriching his family and allies.

Explanatory Reporting

Susie Neilson, Megan Fan Munce and Sara DiNatale of the San Francisco Chronicle - For their series ‘Burned’, which showed how insurance companies using algorithmic tools have failed Californians who lost their homes to fire by systematically undervaluing their properties, denying claims and making it impossible for them to rebuild.

International Reporting

Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Yael Grauer, contributor, of Associated Press - For an astonishing global investigation into state-of-the-art tools of mass surveillance, created in Silicon Valley, advanced in China and spreading worldwide before returning to America for secret new uses by the US Border Patrol.

Books, Drama & Music

Fiction

‘Angel Down’, by Daniel Kraus - A breathless novel of World War I, a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence.

Drama

‘Liberation’, by Bess Wohl - A striking blend of comedy and sincerity that explores the legacy of the consciousness-raising feminist groups of the 1970s, using the story of the playwright’s mother to demonstrate how the movement grew out of conversation, and that anyone experiencing the play has joined the discussion.

History

‘We the People: A History of the US Constitution’, by Jill Lepore - A lively and engaging narrative that investigates why the Constitution is so difficult to amend, including a review of noteworthy failed amendments proposed by marginalised groups.

Biography

‘Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution’, by Amanda Vaill - A lively and detailed biography of two daughters of wealthy and influential Dutch landowners who colored our nation’s history, using present tense to tell their story and past tense to chronicle the dramatic sweep of the American Revolution.

Memoir or Autobiography

‘Things in Nature Merely Grow’, by Yiyun Li - A writer’s deeply moving and revelatory account of losing her younger son to suicide a little more than six years after her older son died in the same manner, an austere and defiant memoir of acceptance that focuses on facts, language and the persistence of life.

Poetry

‘Ars Poeticas’, by Juliana Spahr -  A collection in which the poet takes stock of her personal disillusionment, which she uses to interrogate her relationship to her art form, community and politics.

General Non-fiction

‘There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America’, by Brian Goldstone - A feat of reportage, analysis and storytelling focusing on the issues that have created a national crisis of family homelessness among the so-called working poor.

Music

‘Picaflor: A Future Myth’, by Gabriela Lena Frank - A modern symphonic work informed by the composer’s personal experiences with California wildfires and Andean legend, ten powerful movements that follow a hummingbird through its attempts to escape cataclysms, a contemplation of the fragile future.

Special Citations and Awards

Julie K. Brown - A special citation is awarded to Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown for her groundbreaking reporting in 2017 and 2018 that exposed Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic abuse of young women, the justice system that protected him, and, over time, his powerful network of associates and enablers.