The 2024 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. The Associated Press’ photography staff won the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography, while Reuters’ photo staff took the prize for Breaking News Photography.
2024 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Feature Photography — Associated Press
Looking first at the Feature Photography prize, the Associated Press won for its poignant, long-term look at the migrant crisis facing those journeying north to the United States from Colombia.
The photos were captured throughout 2023 by eight AP staff and freelance photographers, six from Latin America and two from the United States. Photographers had to show the humanity of migration, focusing on the individuals involved.
“Migration is more than numbers. It has to do with people, with the stories behind the reasons for them to leave their countries,” says Eduardo Castillo, AP’s news director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
“Simply put, this was AP at its best — leveraging our global footprint and deep expertise to cover a fast-moving story with high impact,” Executive Editor Julie Pace told AP news staff about the victory. “It’s also particularly heartening that the Pulitzers have recognized AP’s work on international migration given that this has been a global coverage priority for us for the past several years.”
Staff photographers Greg Bull, Eric Gay, Fernando Llano, Marco Ugarte, and Eduardo Verdugo worked on the feature alongside longtime AP freelance photographers Christian Chavez, Felix Marquez, and Ivan Valencia.
“I’d just like to thank people on the way, the migrants themselves… the folks who allowed us to be with them in this tense moment of their life and allowed us, entrusted us to tell their stories,” Bull said to fellow AP staffers.
The migrant crisis remains as important in 2024 as it was last year. More than 10 million people have arrived at U.S. borders in the previous five years. While with such sheer numbers of people arriving, it can be easy for people to politicize the migrant crisis; it is a big issue ahead of the impending 2024 Presidential election.
AP’s photographers credit their ability to work with empathy as a big part of their success.
“It was their ability to emotionally grasp the experience of others and connect with the migrants that enabled them to convey the profoundly intimate moments they captured,” said Ricardo Mazalán, Latin America deputy director of storytelling and photos for AP.
For their prize, the photographers and AP have been awarded $15,000 and, of course, the iconic Pulitzer Prize medal.
2024 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Breaking News Photography — Reuters
Shifting gears to the Breaking News award, Reuters’ photography staff won this year for their coverage of Hamas’ deadly attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the first weeks of Israel’s violent rebuttal on Gaza.
“Reuters photographers — often working at great risk to their personal safety — produced what the Pulitzer jurors called ‘raw and urgent’ images documenting the early days of the war between Israel and Hamas, which began with the militant group’s early-morning October 7 attack in Israel that killed 1,200 people,” Reuters explains.
The winning photos were captured by a wide range of photographers, including Ahmed Zakot, Amir Cohen, Ammar Awad, Evelyn Hockstein, Ibraheem Abu Mustafa, Anas al-Shareef, Mohammed Salem, Ronen Zvulun, and Yasser Qudih.
The lattermost photographer, Qudih, has been heavily scrutinized following the October 7th attacks in Israel, with some claiming — or just “raising questions” — that Qudih could be associated with Hamas.
Reuters has vehemently denied these unsubstantiated claims, and notes that Israeli air strikes killed eight of Qudih’s family members on November 13, 2023, less than a week after pro-Israel media watchdog HonestReporting name-dropped Qudih, among other journalists, as those with ties to Hamas.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says that, as of today, at least 97 journalists and media workers have been killed since the war began last October, 92 of whom are Palestinian.
“Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives — to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” says CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in New York. “Journalists are civilians who are protected by international humanitarian law in times of conflict. Those responsible for their deaths face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”
Image credits: Associated Press and Reuters. Individual photographers are credited in the photo captions.