Here are the winners of the 2026 Pulitzer Prizes

The Pulitzer Prize winners had been introduced Monday afternoon from Columbia University in New York, recognizing some of the most consequential journalism produced over the previous yr.

Widely thought-about the high honor in American journalism, the Pulitzers reward standout reporting, commentary and storytelling throughout newsrooms giant and small.

This yr’s awards arrive at a second of heightened strain on the press. Since the begin of his second time period in January 2025, President Donald Trump and his administration have taken steps which have difficult journalists’ capability to cowl the authorities — proscribing entry to the White House and Pentagon, defunding public media and pursuing investigations into information shops and particular person reporters. Poynter is monitoring these developments in our Press Freedom Watch.

Below, you will discover the full record of winners and finalists. We’ll replace this web page as awards are introduced, so examine again all through the day. We’ll additionally spend the week digging into the successful work, recognizing traits and highlighting the most notable tales.

​Breaking News Reporting

Awarded to the employees of The Minnesota Star Tribune for his or her coverage of a shooting in a back-to-school Mass at a Catholic college that left two kids lifeless and 17 wounded, highly effective tales marked by thoroughness and compassion.

Finalists

Investigative Reporting

Awarded to the employees of The New York Times for deeply reported stories that exposed how President Trump has shattered constraints on conflicts of curiosity and exploited the moneymaking alternatives that include energy, enriching his household and allies.

Finalists

Explanatory Reporting

Awarded to Susie Neilson, Megan Fan Munce and Sara DiNatale of the San Francisco Chronicle for his or her collection “Burned,” which confirmed how insurance coverage corporations utilizing algorithmic instruments have failed Californians who misplaced their houses to fireplace by systematically undervaluing their properties, denying claims, and making it not possible for them to rebuild.

Finalists

Beat Reporting

Awarded to Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham of Reuters for inventive and revelatory reporting on Meta that detailed the know-how firm’s willingness to reveal customers, together with kids, to scams and AI manipulation.

Finalists

Local Reporting

Awarded to Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk of The Connecticut Mirror and Sophie Chou and Haru Coryne of ProPublica for a powerful collection exposing how the state’s distinctive towing legal guidelines favored unscrupulous corporations that overcharged residents, prompting swift and significant client protections.

Awarded to the employees of the Chicago Tribune for his powerful coverage of the Trump administration’s militarized immigration sweep of the metropolis that described in vivid, muscular prose how the siege-like incursion of ICE brokers unified Chicagoans in resistance.

Finalists

National Reporting

Awarded to the employees of Reuters, notably Ned Parker, Linda So, Peter Eisler and Mike Spector, for documenting how the president used the US government and the influence of his supporters to broaden govt energy and precise vengeance on his foes.

Finalists

International Reporting

Awarded to Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Yael Grauer, contributor, of The Associated Press, for an astonishing global investigation into state-of-the-art tools of mass surveillancecreated in Silicon Valley, superior in China, and spreading worldwide earlier than returning to America for secret new makes use of by the US Border Patrol.

Finalists

Feature Writing

Awarded to Aaron Parsley of Texas Monthly for his extraordinary personal account of survival and loss written days after the historic Central Texas floods that took the author’s home out from underneath him and his household, taking the life of his nephew.

Finalists

Criticism

Awarded to Mark Lamster of The Dallas Morning News for his rigorous and passionate architectural criticismutilizing wit and experience to amplify his opinions and advocate for metropolis residents.

Finalists

• Vinson Cunningham of The New Yorker for sophisticated, accessible essays on the mediawith an emphasis on tv, that handle shifts in tradition, politics and American life with clear-eyed authority.
• Michael J. Lewis of The Wall Street Journal for informed and insightful writing about structure that brings the inanimate to life and displays a deep understanding that buildings are without delay visible and civic areas.

Opinion Writing

Awarded to M. Gessen of The New York Times for an illuminating assortment of reported essays on rising authoritarian regimes that attracts on historical past and private expertise to probe well timed themes of oppression, belonging and exile.

Finalists

• Gustavo Arellano of the Los Angeles Times for passionate, vivid commentary on the cruelty endured by households and communities in the Los Angeles space focused by federal mass deportation coverage.
• Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times for a wrenching and impactful series of columns imploring Americans to face the lethal penalties of the Trump administration’s cuts to the US Agency for International Development.

Illustrated Reporting and Commentary

Awarded to Anand RK and Suparna Sharma, contributors, and Natalie Obiko Pearson of Bloomberg for “trAPPed,” a riveting account of a neurologist in India threatened with “digital arrest” by cellphone, visuals and phrases that solid gentle on the rising challenges of surveillance and digital scams.

Finalists

• Ivan Ehlers, freelancer, for a powerful assortment addressing modern points, together with economics, local weather and immigration, that exhibits extraordinary vary, deft artistry and highly effective commentary from an rising visible journalist.
• Peter Kuper, freelancer, for a portfolio of vibrant and wordless political cartoons on the local weather disaster, politics and rising know-how rendered with a recent perspective and a novel strategy to visible storytelling.
• Adolfo Arranz, Poppy McPherson, Devjyot Ghoshal and Han Huang of Reuters for “Scammed into Scamming,” an insightful and superbly rendered visible narrative depicting a multibillion-dollar digital scamming business staffed with victims of international human trafficking.

Breaking News Photography

Awarded to Saher Alghorra, contributor, The New York Times for his haunting, series showing the devastation and sensitive starvation in Gaza ensuing from the struggle with Israel.

Finalists

• The pictures employees of the Los Angeles Times for photographs capturing the deadliest city wildfires in Los Angeles historical past, revealing the chaos, destruction, and people toll as flames tore via communities.
• The pictures employees of Reuters for protection of wide-ranging immigration enforcement actions throughout the United States, a portfolio distinguished by its breadth, energy and immediacy.

Feature Photography

Awarded to Jahi Chikwendiu of The Washington Post for a heart-wrenching and achingly beautiful photo essay on a younger household welcoming the beginning of their first baby as the father is slowly dying from most cancers.

Finalists

• Gabrielle Lurie of the San Francisco Chronicle for a deeply intimate and delicate collection illustrating the brutal actuality of the fentanyl disaster in America via three individuals affected by it.
• The pictures employees of The New York Times for an in-depth report on the ubiquitous, lethal drone warfare devastating Ukraine.

Audio Reporting

Awarded to the Staff of “Pablo Torre Finds Out” for a pioneering and entertaining form of live podcast journalism that investigated how the Los Angeles Clippers seemingly evaded the NBA’s wage cap by funneling cash to a star participant via an environmental startup.

Finalists

• Azeen Ghorayshi and Austin Mitchell of The New York Times for “The Protocol,” their complete investigation of youth gender drugs, exploring its origins and makes use of, serving to to light up one of the most controversial well being coverage debates of our time.
• Valerie Bauerlein, Heather Rogers, Colin McNulty, Nathan Singhapok and Rachel Humphreys of The Wall Street Journal for “Camp Swamp Road,” which makes use of extraordinary archival audio to research a 2023 deadly taking pictures and the flawed implementation of stand-your-ground legal guidelines.

Public Service

Awarded to The Washington Post for piercing the veil of secrecy around the Trump administration’s chaotic overhaul of federal agencies and chronicling in wealthy element the human impacts of the cuts and the penalties for the nation.

Finalists

Special Citation

A particular quotation is awarded to Miami Herald reporter Julie Okay. Brown for her groundbreaking reporting in 2017 and 2018 that uncovered Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic abuse of younger girls, the justice system that protected him, and, over time, his highly effective community of associates and enablers. Her Perversion of Justice collection, revealed almost a decade in the past, revealed how prosecutors shielded Epstein from federal intercourse trafficking costs when he was first accused of abusing younger girls. She went on to doc and provides voice to the scores of victims who had been groomed and abused by him and others in his circle. Her work, and the launch of the authorities’s Epstein recordsdata, proceed to reverberate round the world.

The Pulitzer Prizes additionally gave awards in Letters and Drama, together with for Fiction, Drama, History, Biography, Memoir or Autobiography, Poetry, General Nonfiction and Music.