Three photojournalists from Occupied Jammu and Kashmir are among the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners. The awards were announced virtually last night owing to the coronavirus outbreak.
Mukhtar Khan, Yasin Dar and Channi Anand – working with the Associated Press (AP) – won the top honors for their work in the region after massive restrictions were put in place by the Indian government following the move to end Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and split it into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The Pulitzer Prizes, the most prestigious awards in American journalism, have been handed out since 1917, when newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer established them in his will.
The New York Times picked up the most awards this year, collecting three awards, including the international reporting prize for a series of stories on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
News agency Reuters won the breaking news photography award for pictures of the Hong Kong protests. The explanatory reporting prize was awarded to the staff of The Washington Post for a series that showed the effects of extreme temperatures on the planet.
Pulitzer Prize board administrator Dana Canedy declared the winners from her living room via a live stream on YouTube rather than at a ceremony at New York’s Columbia University. The announcement was postponed for two weeks because some journalists on the 18-member Pulitzer board are busy covering the coronavirus pandemic.
