On Monday, Reuters was named the winner of two 2018 Pulitzer Prizes – the first time in Reuters history that it has received two Pulitzer Prizes in one year.
Reuters journalists Clare Baldwin, Andrew R.C. Marshall, Manuel Mogato and team were recognized in the International Reporting category for their series of investigations that revealed how police are conducting the bloody drug crackdown in the Philippines. Baldwin and Marshall accessed and analyzed a trove of official crime data, security footage and crime scene photos. They identified not just new patterns in the killings, but also the top killers, corroborating their findings with months of risky reporting in slums and hostile police stations. The series explored how Philippine police use hospitals to cover up drug-war executions; how a group of police officers from Duterte’s hometown Davao formed the core of a lethal anti-drug unit; and how Duterte targets Philippine children in a bid to widen the drug war. The Pulitzer committee recognized the team for their “relentless reporting that exposed the brutal killing campaign behind Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.”
Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River with an improvised raft to reach to Bangladesh in Teknaf, Bangladesh, November 12, 2017. Picture taken November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain 
A policeman waits for the start of a flag-raising ceremony at the grounds of Station 6, Batasan Police Station, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines December 4, 2017. Picture taken December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
A pair of slippers and a gun lie amid blood spatter on the pavement under Macarthur bridge in the Sta Cruz district of Manila after police rushed three men, who were dead on arrival, to a public hospital on June 15, 2017. Picture taken June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao 
A policeman waits for the start of a flag-raising ceremony at the grounds of Station 6, Batasan Police Station, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines December 4, 2017. Picture taken December 4, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
Jellyset, daughter of the late Bernabe Sabangan, is pictured in front of a shrine for her father in Barangay Bagong Silangan in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines November 28, 2017. Picture taken November 28, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
The series has also been recognized this year with an Overseas Press Club Award and two Amnesty International Media Awards.
Reuters photographers Adnan Abidi, Mohammad Ponir Hossain, Hannah McKay, Cathal McNaughton, Damir Sagolj, Danish Siddiqui and Soe Zeya Tun were recognized in the category of Feature Photography for their coverage of the mass exodus of the Rohingya people to Bangladesh. The Rohingyas’ migration from Myanmar is grueling and deadly. Hundreds of thousands of people, wet, caked in mud, exhausted, starving or sick, arrive in a state of panic and need the last of their energy. To document it was a severe challenge to Reuters journalists. The Pulitzer judges honored the team “for shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar.”
Reuters Rohingya coverage also received an Overseas Press Club Award citation and a Society of News Design Best of Digital Design Award. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two Reuters journalists currently jailed in Myanmar, were awarded the PEN America Freedom to Write Award and the National Press Club’s Aubuchon Press Freedom Award for their coverage of the Rohingya’s plight, and are also finalists for two One World Media Awards.
[Reuters Press Blog]
Media Contact:
Heather dot Carpenter at thomsonreuters dot com