NEW YORK — The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for scrutinizing the Trump administration’s sweeping, choppy cuts and changes to federal agencies, and The Associated Press won the award Monday for international reporting.
The Post’s coverage illuminated the fast-moving, sometimes opaque particulars of President Donald Trump’s drive to reshape the national government, and judges credited the Post with detailing what the changes meant for individual Americans.
The Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown was given a special citation for her reporting, nearly a decade ago, that drew attention to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuses. The New York Times won three of the coveted prizes, Reuters won two and smaller outlets ranging from The Connecticut Mirror to the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” also were recognized in a challenging year for American journalism.
In the last few months, the Post cut a third of its staff, CBS News announced it would shutter its nearly century-old radio service, The Associated Press offered buyouts to over 120 journalists and some regional newspapers also publicly struggled. CBS parent Paramount’s acquisition of CNN has raised questions about what’s next for those networks. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continued to bash, and sometimes sue, outlets whose coverage he finds objectionable.
“This is always a day of celebration in our communities, but perhaps never more so than today as we face tremendous” challenges, prize administrator Marjorie Miller said in a livestream announcing the awards.
‘Sweeping and deeply impactful reporting’
Spanning three years, thousands of pages of documents and numerous interviews, the AP project found that American companies help lay the foundations of the Chinese government’s system for monitoring and policing its citizens.
Other stories included a look at how across presidential administrations, Washington allowed tech companies and Beijing to skirt regulations intended to bar China from access to certain materials, such as advanced computer chips.
“This was sweeping and deeply impactful reporting, the kind of work that highlights the unique strengths of AP’s global, multiformat newsroom,” executive editor Julie Pace said in an email to staffers. She is among the Pulitzer Board’s new members.
Reuters won the award for national reporting. Its work looked at how U.S. President Donald Trump has used the federal government and his supporters’ influence to expand presidential authority and to try to punish his foes, the award judges noted.
It was one of two awards for Reuters. Its reporting on the social media giant Meta won a prize in the newly revived category for beat reporting.
The Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of last year’s mass shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school took the prize for breaking news.
Judges praised the “thoroughness and compassion” of the newspaper’s reporting on a scene of carnage in its hometown. Two children were killed and more than a dozen others were injured as shooter opened fire during the school’s first Mass of the academic year. The shooter later was found dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot.
The Post also won the feature photography prize, for a visual essay on a family welcoming a firstborn as the child’s father grappled with terminal cancer.
Pulitzers come a week after an attack on press dinner
The Pulitzer announcement – usually followed by a dinner later in the year – came little more than a week after an armed man rushed a security checkpoint and exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents outside another big event for U.S. journalists, the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington. The man is now charged with trying to assassinate Trump, who was attending the event for his first time as president.
The Pulitzer journalism awards are for work done in 2025 by U.S. news sites, newspapers, magazines and wire services in text, photo, and audio. Video and graphics can be part of an entry package. Television and radio stations’ websites also are eligible, if their entries focus on written material.
Separately, Monday’s awards also honored books, music and theater.
The Pulitzer Prizes were established in newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer’s will and were first awarded in 1917. Winners receive $15,000, and the prestigious public service award earns a gold medal.
Decisions are made by the Pulitzer Board, based at Columbia University in New York.
