NEW YORK — The biggest U.S. news story of 2016 — the tumultuous presidential campaign — yielded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for the Washington Post reporter who not only raised doubts about Donald Trump’s charitable giving but also revealed that the candidate had been recorded crudely bragging about grabbing women.
David A. Fahrenthold won the prize for national reporting, with the judges citing stories that examined Trump’s charitable foundation and called into question whether the real estate magnate was as generous as he claimed.
Fahrenthold’s submission also included his story about Trump’s raunchy behind-the-scenes comments during a 2005 taping of “Access Hollywood.” His talk about groping women’s genitals rocked the White House race and prompted a rare apology from the then-candidate.
In another election-related prize, Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer for commentary for columns that “connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.”
American journalism’s most distinguished prizes also recognized work that shed light on international financial intrigue and held local officials accountable.
The New York Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer in public service for uncovering how authorities used an obscure law, originally enacted to crack down on prostitution in Times Square in the 1970s, to evict hundreds of people, mostly poor minorities, from their homes.
The New York Times’ staff received the international reporting award for its work on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to project Moscow’s power abroad. The award in feature writing went to the Times’ C.J. Chivers for a story about a Marine’s descent into violence after returning home from war.
Winners ranged from partnerships spanning hundreds of reporters to newspapers as small as The Storm Lake Times, a twice-weekly, 3,000-circulation family-owned paper in Iowa. Co-owner Art Cullen won the editorial writing award for challenging powerful corporate agricultural interests in the state.
The prize for explanatory reporting went to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and the Miami Herald, which amassed a group of over 400 journalists to examine the leaked “Panama Papers” and expose the way that politicians, criminals and rich people stashed money in offshore accounts.
Meanwhile, the Herald’s Jim Morin won the award for editorial cartooning. He also won in 1996.
Eric Eyre of The Charleston Gazette-Mail received the investigative reporting prize for articles showing that drug wholesalers had shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in six years, as 1,728 people fatally overdosed on the painkillers.
The staff of the East Bay Times in Oakland, Calif., received the breaking news reporting award for its coverage of a fire that killed 36 people at a warehouse party and for its follow-up reporting on how local officials hadn’t taken action that might have prevented it.
The staff of The Salt Lake Tribune received the local reporting award for its work on how Brigham Young University treated sexual assault victims. The series prompted the Mormon school to stop conducting honor code investigations into students who reported being sexually assaulted.
Freelancer Daniel Berehulak received the breaking news photography award for his images, published in The New York Times, documenting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on drug dealers and users.
This year’s feature photography winner was E. Jason Wambsgans of the Chicago Tribune, for his portrayal of a 10-year-old boy who had been shot.
Arts prizes are awarded in seven categories, including fiction, drama and music. Among the arts winners, Colson Whitehead took the fiction prize for “The Underground Railroad.” Playwright Lynn Nottage won her second drama Pulitzer, for “Sweat.”
