In May 2025, The Pulitzer Prize Board announced the winners of 109th Pulitzer Prize (2025), honoring outstanding works produced in the 2024 calendar year across categories including Journalism, Books, Drama and Music, and Special Citations.
- This year, The New York Times (NYT) won 4 awards in different categories of Pulitzer Prize. With this, NYT increased its total Pulitzer prizes to 139, a record high since the awards started in year 1917.
- It is followed by the New Yorker magazine which secured 3 awards in  categories like: commentary, feature photography and audio reporting, mainly in recognition of their coverage of overseas wars.
Key Highlights:
i.Renowned American Photographer Doug Mills (NYT) won in the category of ‘Breaking News Photography’ for capturing the attempted assassination of then- the United States of America (USA)Presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 13, 2024 in Pennsylvania (USA).
- Also, the NYT won in the category of ‘Local Reporting’ for its own coverage of the fentanyl crisis in partnership with the non-profit organisation Baltimore Banner.
ii.The staff of Toronto (Canada)-based Reuters won 2025 Pulitzer Prize in ‘investigative reporting’ category for its 7-part series named ‘Fentanyl Express’ that penetrated the international trade in the chemicals used to make fentanyl, the drug that has killed some 450,000 Americans.
- This marks the 13th Pulitzer Prize for Reuters, all since 2008.
iii.ProPublica won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Journalism in the Public Service category.
- ProPublica’s journalists Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser, Cassandra Jaramillo, and Stacy Kranitz were recognised for their groundbreaking report on pregnant women who died after doctors delayed their care out of fear of violating stringent abortion laws in certain states of USA.
v.The Wall Street Journal won 2025 Pulitzer Prize in ‘national reporting’ category for its examination of the political and personal shifts of Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tesla and SpaceX.
vi.This year, the Pulitzer Board awarded a special citation to Charles Summer ‘Chuck’ Stone Jr. (Posthumously), former journalism professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in USA, in recognition of his outstanding work as a journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement, his pioneering role as the 1st Black Columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News.
About The Pulitzer Prize:
i.Pulitzer Prize is the highest national honor in USA in the field of journalism, literature, and music composition.
ii.The Pulitzer Prize was established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher.
- It is administered by Columbia University, New York (USA) and the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Categories:
i.Currently, Pulitzer Prize is presented in 24 categories which are broadly classified as: Journalism (15), Letters, Drama and Music (8), and Special Citation (1).
ii.Each Pulitzer Prize winner receives a certificate and a prize money of USD 15,000, while the winner in the ‘Public Service’ category is awarded a gold medal.
Eligibility:
i.Only American citizens are eligible to apply for the Pulitzer Prize in Books, Drama and Music.
- Except for History category, the book must be about history of USA but the author may be of any nationality.
ii.In Journalism category, entrants may be of any nationality but their work must have appeared in U.S. newspaper, magazine or news site that publishes regularly.
Winners of 2025 Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism
| Category | Winners |
|---|---|
| Public Service | ProPublica for the work of Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser, Cassandra Jaramillo and Stacy Kranitz |
| Breaking News Reporting | Staff of The Washington Post |
| Investigative Reporting | Staff of Reuters |
| Explanatory Reporting | Azam Ahmed and Christina Goldbaum of NYT and Matthieu Aikins (contributing writer) |
| Local Reporting | Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher of the Baltimore and The New York Times (NYT) |
| National Reporting | Staff of The Wall Street Journal |
| International Reporting | Declan Walsh and the Staff of the NYT |
| Feature Writing | Â Mark Warren (contributor), Esquire |
| Commentary | Mosab Abu Toha (contributor), The New Yorker |
| Criticism | Alexandra Lange (contributing writer), Bloomberg City Lab |
| Editorial Writing | Raj Makand, Sharon Steinmann, Lisa Falkenberg and Lean Binkovitz of The Houston Chronicle |
| Illustrated Reporting and Commentary | Ann Telnaes of The Washington Post |
| Breaking News Photography | Doug Mills of The NYT |
| Feature Photography | Moises Saman (contributor), The New Yorker |
| Audio Reporting | Staffs of The New Yorker |
Winners of 2025 Pulitzer Prize – Books, Drama and Music
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| Fiction | James, by Percival Everett (Doubleday) |
| Drama | Purpose, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins |
| History | Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen Du Val (Random House) |
| Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black (Oxford University Press) | |
| Biography | Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts (Random House) |
| Memoir (Autobiography) | Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls (MCD) |
| Poetry | New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe (W.W. Norton & Company) |
| General Nonfiction | To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans (Princeton University Press) |
| Music | Sky Islands by Susie Ibarra |
2025 Pulitzer- Special Citations
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| Special Awards and Citations | Chuck Stone (Posthumously) |
