Two collaborative journalism projects win 2020 Pulitzer Prizes
A total of 7 Pulitzers have gone to collaborative efforts since 2016; several others have been finalists
Two Pulitzer Prizes went to collaborative reporting projects for 2020, marking the seventh time in the last five years that journalism produced in partnership has won the industry’s top honor.
Those winners included:
Anchorage Daily News with contributions from ProPublica
The Anchorage Daily News is part of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, and the winning series in the public service category examined how a third of Alaska’s villages have no police protection and high rates of sexual assault.
This Pulitzer marks the first win for the a partner in the Local Reporting Network, an initiative that began in January 2018 as a way to bolster local investigative reporting across the U.S. The network now partners ProPublica’s journalists with 20 newsrooms around the country.
Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer, Vice News
In the audio reporting category—a new category for the Pulitzer— the staff of This American Life, Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and freelancer Emily Green won for “The Out Crowd,” which looked at how the Trump Administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy impacts people on the ground.
It’s an incredibly compelling episode, telling the stories of asylum seekers waiting in a makeshift refugee camp in Mexico after being turned away and sent there by U.S. border officials.
Previous Pulitzer winners that were collaborative projects include:
- 2018: The Arizona Republic and USA Today Network
- 2017: New York Daily News and ProPublica
- 2017: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and Miami Herald
- 2016: Leonora LaPeter Anton and Anthony Cormier of the Tampa Bay Times and Michael Braga of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
- 2016: T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of The Marshall Project
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Stefanie Murray is director of the Center for Cooperative Media. Contact her at murrayst@montclair.edu.
About the Center for Cooperative Media: The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. Its mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism, and in doing so serve New Jersey residents. The Center is supported with funding from Montclair State University, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, the New Jersey Local News Lab (a partnership of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Community Foundation of New Jersey), and the Abrams Foundation. For more information, visit CenterforCooperativeMedia.org.
