NEW YORK — The Pulitzer Prizes will be announced Monday, traditionally the most anticipated day of the year for those hoping to earn print journalism's most prestigious honor.
In addition to honoring winners and finalists in 15 journalism categories, the Pulitzer Board also recognizes distinguished work in fields such as books, music and theater. The awards, honoring work from 2023, are expected to be announced via livestream at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.
While predicting potential winners is a guessing game, the Pulitzers often go to coverage of the year's biggest stories. In this case, the October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza are a possibility that could cause controversy.
With the Committee to Protect Journalists estimating that at least 97 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, many observers will be interested to see whether the Pulitzers recognize the work of Palestinian reporters. Last month, a group of journalism professors called on the New York Times to answer questions about an investigation into gender-based violence during the Hamas attack on Israel.
The awards are administered by Columbia University in New York, which has itself been in the news for student demonstrations against the war in Gaza. The Pulitzer board met outside Columbia last weekend to deliberate on the winners.
The administration released a statement Thursday saluting student journalists from Columbia and other universities across the country for their work covering the campus demonstrations.
For the first time, the Pulitzers have opened up the opportunity to broadcasting and audio companies that also operate digital news sites, such as CNN, NPR and the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC. However, the work should mainly be in digital journalism.
The Columbia Journalism School also administers the duPont-Columbia Awards, which recognize audio and visual journalism and are presented in the winter.
The Pulitzers will hand out cash prizes and a medal for the prestigious public service award, won last year by The Associated Press for its reporting on Russia's siege of Mariupol in Ukraine.
The Pulitzers also announced that five of the 45 finalists this year used artificial intelligence in researching and reporting their entries. It was the first time the board required applicants for the award to disclose their use of AI.
The prizes were established in the will of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer and first awarded in 1917.
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David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.
