By Hindustan Times
Agence France-Presse and the scoop websites Huffington Post and Politico each won their first Pulitzer Prizes on Monday because the prestigious journalism awards highlighted global issues and online reporting.
The Ny Times won two Pulitzers, and the committee notably didn't make awards for editorial writing or fiction in a year which saw Web journalism mark further gains.
AFP's Massoud Hossaini won the award for breaking news photography "for his heartbreaking image of a woman crying in fear after a suicide bomber's attack at a crowded shrine in Kabul," the committee announced.
His AFP photograph published December 7 shows young Tarana Akbari screaming after a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a crowd on the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul on December 6.
"When I MAY stand up, I saw that everyone was around me at the ground, really bloody. I USED TO BE really, really scared," said the girl, whose name means "melody," and whose age was given as either 10 or 12.
Sig Gissler, the Pulitzer administrator, called the AFP picture "one single riveting photograph," and "an image you are going to long remember."
AFP chief executive Emmanuel Hoog said the committee "has honored certainly one of our bravest and best photojournalists, Massoud Hossaini, and the award is recognition of AFP's insistence on quality and commitment around the range of journalistic pursuits."
Hoog added, "Today, within the news arena, words without images are impoverished and images without text don't seem to be enough. The 2 complement one another and photographs -- fixed or moving -- are necessary to the journalism of the 21st century... Bravo and congratulations to Massoud."
The Pulitzers, which date back to 1917, began allowing online-only publications to compete three years ago.
David Wood of The Huffington Post won the national reporting prize "for his riveting exploration of the physical and emotional challenges" facing American soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, the committee said.
Politico's Matt Wuerker won the award for editorial cartooning, satirizing the partisan conflict that engulfed Washington in 2011.
The public service award went to The Philadelphia Inquirer "for its exploration of pervasive violence within the city's schools," in step with the Pulitzer committee.
The prize for breaking news went to the workers of the Tuscaloosa News for the Alabama paper's coverage using real-time updates to assist locate missing people after a perilous tornado, which forced the newspaper to publish at another site.
The award for investigative reporting was shared by Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley of the Associated Press and Michael Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times.
The AP was recognized for reporting at the The big apple Police Department's clandestine spying program that monitored lifestyle in Muslim communities.
The Seattle Times journalists were honored for his or her coverage of a little-known governmental body in Washington state which moved vulnerable patients from safer pain-control medication to methadone, a less expensive but more dangerous drug.
The Big apple Times took awards for explanatory reporting for David Kocieniewski's reporting on tax loopholes; and for international reporting for Jeffrey Gettleman's coverage of famine and conflict in East Africa.
Pulitzers also went to Sara Ganim, probably the most youngest-ever winners at 24, and members of The Patriot-News Staff in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for local reporting; Eli Sanders of the Washington state weekly The Stranger, for feature writing; Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune for commentary; Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe for criticism; and Craig Walker of The Denver Post for feature photography.
Besides journalism, the Pulitzer Board, made from journalists from across the country and representatives of Columbia University, also bestows awards for literature, drama and music. No award was given this year for fiction for the primary time since 1977.
The drama award went to "Water by the Spoonful" by Quiara Alegria Hudes, while the history prize went to the late Manning Marable for "Malcolm X: A LIFETIME OF Reinvention."
John Lewis Gaddis wat the Pulitzer for biography for his book "George F. Kennan: An American Life," on the American diplomat.
The Pulitzers for poetry went to "Life on Mars" by Tracy K. Smith; general nonfiction to "The Swerve: How the sector Became Modern," by Stephen Greenblatt; and music to "Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts" by Kevin Puts.
Each Pulitzer winner receives $10,000.
