MYANMAR JAILED REUTERS REPORTERS & U.S. BORDER PHOTOGRAPHERS WIN PULITZER PRIZES
 |
| This combo shows journalists Kyaw Soe Oo (L) and Wa Lone (R) being escorted by police after their sentencing by a court to jail in Yangon on September 3, 2018. Photo: AFP files |
Reuters won two Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, one for revealing the massacre
of 10 Muslim Rohingya men by Buddhist villagers and Myanmar security forces,
and another for photographs of Central American migrants seeking refuge in the
United States.
The awards marked the second year in a row that Reuters has won two
Pulitzers, the most prestigious prize in American journalism. Reuters has won
seven since 2008.
Two of this year’s honorees have been jailed for 490 days in Myanmar for
their role in uncovering the killings.
“While it’s gratifying to be recognized for the work, public attention
should be focused more on the people about whom we report than on us: in this
case, the Rohingya and the Central American migrants,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief
Stephen J. Adler said.
In other categories, coverage of mass shootings in the United States and
investigations into U.S. President Donald Trump featured prominently. The New
York Times and the Washington Post also took two Pulitzers each.
 |
| Ten rohingya Muslim men with their hands bound kneel as member of the sicurity force stand guard in inn din village ( Photos Reuters ) |
Reuters and the Associated Press were both awarded prizes for
international reporting, with the AP winning for its coverage of war atrocities
in Yemen.
The Reuters award was for an investigative report that revealed the
massacre of 10 Rohingya at the village of Inn Din, in the heart of the conflict
zone of Rakhine state in Myanmar.
Two young Reuters reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, both Myanmar
citizens, found a mass grave filled with bones sticking out of the ground. They
went on to gather testimony from perpetrators, witnesses and families of
victims.
They obtained three devastating photographs from villagers: two showed
the 10 Rohingya men bound and kneeling; the third showed the mutilated and
bullet-ridden bodies of the same 10 men in the same shallow grave.
In December 2017, before Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo could complete their
story, they were arrested in what international observers have criticized as an
effort by authorities to block the report. The report, “Massacre in Myanmar,”
was completed by colleagues Simon Lewis and Antoni Slodkowski and published in
February of last year.
In September, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced to seven years
imprisonment for violating the country’s Official Secrets Act.
“I’m thrilled that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo and their colleagues have been
recognized for their extraordinary, courageous coverage, and our
photojournalists for their moving pictures that show humanity defying huge
obstacles,” Adler said. “I remain deeply distressed, however, that our brave
reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are still behind bars.”
BORDER IMAGES
In the breaking news photography category, 11 Reuters photographers
contributed pictures to “On the Migrant Trail to America,” a package of images
showing asylum-seekers and other migrants from Central America at the U.S.
border.
One photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon showed migrants fleeing tear gas launched by
U.S. authorities into Mexico at the San Diego-Tijuana border. In the image a
mother grabs her twin daughters by the arm, one in diapers and wearing rubber
sandals, the other barefoot, as a teargas cannister emits its fumes.
 |
| Luis Acosta holds 5-year-old Angel Jesus, both from Honduras, as a caravan of migrants from Central America en route to the United States crossed through the Suchiate River into Mexico from Guatemala in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico ( Photos Reuters ) |
In another image, an aerial photo, Mike Blake was the first to photograph
the detention facility in Tornillo, Texas, where children walked in single
file, like prisoners.
Goran Tomasevic captured an image in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, a city
with one of the highest murder rates in the world, of a rooster scratching in
the dirt next to the slain body of a Barrio 18 gang member. Tomasevic was a
previous finalist for his pictures of the war in Syria.
MASS SHOOTING COVERAGE HONORED
The New York Times won a prize for explanatory reporting of Trump’s
finances and tax avoidance and another for editorial writing by Brent Staples.
The Washington Post’s Lorenzo Tugnoli won the feature photography prize
for images of the famine in Yemen and the newspaper’s Carlos Lozada also won
for criticism.
The Wall Street Journal won the national reporting prize for uncovering
Trump’s secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had
affairs with him.
Coverage of mass shootings in the United States was also recognized four
times.
 |
| A Honduran man protects his child after migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the US, stormed a border checkpoint in Guatemala ( Photos Reuters ) |
The South Florida Sun Sentinel won the public service award for “exposing
failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly
shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School,” the Pulitzer board
said. Seventeen people died in the massacre at the Parkland, Florida, high
school on Feb. 14, 2018.
The staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won the breaking news prize for
its coverage of “immersive, compassionate” coverage of the massacre at
Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that killed 11 people on Oct. 27, 2018.
 |
| Maria Meza runs away from tear gas with her daughters Jamie Mejia Meza, aged 12 and her five-year-old twin daughters Saira Mejia Meza and Cheili Mejia Meza in front of the border wall between the U.S and Mexico, in Tijuana, Mexico Nov. 25, 2018.(Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters) |
Pulitzer administrator Dana Canedy, upon announcing the winners, also
offered admiration for a non-winner: the staff of the Eagle Eye student
newspaper at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for its coverage of the
killings.
The Pulitzer board also awarded a special citation to the Capital Gazette
of Annapolis, Maryland, for “their courageous response to the largest killing
of journalists in U.S. history in their newsroom.” A gunman shot and killed
five people there on June 28, 2018.
News Source : Reuters, New York
No comments