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A US local newspaper has won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of a mass shooting in its own newsroom.

But there was no celebration as the Capital Gazette in Maryland learned on Monday it had won the most prestigious prize in American journalism.

Staff quietly hugged in memory of five colleagues killed by a gunman who burst into their office in June 2018.

Pulitzers also went to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal for investigations into President Trump.

Two journalists jailed in Myanmar for reporting a massacre of Rohingya Muslims were part of a team from Reuters news agency that also won an award.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were sentenced last year to seven years in prison for breaking the Official Secrets Act, despite an international outcry over what was widely seen as an attack on media freedom.

Reuters has said it will not be celebrating the prize until their two colleagues are released.

The Capital Gazette in Annapolis won a special Pulitzer Prize citation for its coverage and courage in the face of one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in American history.

The Pulitzer board awarded the citation with a $100,000 (£76,400) grant to further the newspaper's journalism.

Employees John McNamara, Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, Gerald Fischman and Rob Hiaasen died in last summer's attack.

But the staff still managed to publish a newspaper on schedule the next day.

A man with a longstanding grudge against the Capital Gazette is charged with the attack. He pleaded not guilty last year.

Coverage of mass shootings netted Pulitzers for two other local newspapers.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette received a breaking news award for its "immersive, compassionate" reporting of last October's attack at a Pennsylvania synagogue that left 11 people dead.

And the South Florida Sun Sentinel won a Pulitzer for its reporting on the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead.

It received the public service award for "exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly shooting rampage".

The New York Times won a prize for explanatory reporting of Mr Trump's finances and tax avoidance and another for editorial writing.

The Wall Street Journal won the national reporting prize for uncovering the president's secret payoffs to two alleged former mistresses during his campaign.

The Washington Post also won two Pulitzers for photojournalism in Yemen and for criticism, covering book reviews and essays.</s>Three Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded to newspapers for their coverage of gun violence.

The Pulitzer for public service was awarded Monday to the South Florida Sun Sentinel for its coverage of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. Seventeen students and staff were killed in the shooting.

The prize for breaking news reporting went to went to the staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for coverage of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October. That attack killed 11 people.

The Capital Gazette was given a special citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its own newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. The newspaper published on schedule the day after the shooting claimed five staffers’ lives. It was one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history. The man charged in the attack had a longstanding grudge against the paper.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting on President Donald Trump.

The Journal won its Pulitzer in national reporting for its investigations of hush money payments orchestrated by the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to silence women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.

The New York Times was awarded a Pulitzer in explanatory reporting for investigation of Trump family tax schemes that helped the president’s father pass on millions of dollars to his children while minimizing inheritance taxes.

Trump has denied having affairs with the women.

He has also denied that his family did anything improper regarding his taxes, calling the Times report a “hit piece.”

Three Los Angeles Times reporters also won a Pulitzer for their investigation into a gynecologist accused of abusing hundreds of students at the University of Southern California.

Harriet Ryan, Matt Hamilton and Paul Pringle won the prize Monday for their stories about Dr. George Tyndall, which started with an anonymous tip Ryan received.

In the wake of the stories, the university’s president resigned, the Los Angeles Police Department launched an investigation and more than 650 women have sued USC, alleging the school failed to protect them from sexual abuse. Tyndall has denied the allegations.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger won a Pulitzer for his series of columns about debtors’ prisons in Missouri.

Messenger found defendants across Missouri who owed thousands of dollars in “board bills” for time spent in jail even though they had fulfilled their sentences or served out parole.

As a result of his work, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that judges can’t use courts to threaten indigent defendants with jail time, nor can they collect debts as court costs.

Post-Dispatch President and Publisher Ray Farris said Messenger’s work “exemplifies the highest standards of our profession.”

The newspaper also won a Pulitzer Prize, U.S. journalism’s highest honor, in 2015 for photographic coverage of the unrest in Ferguson after Michael Brown’s death.

Singer Aretha Franklin was given an honorary Pulitzer Prize, cited posthumously for her extraordinary career.

Pulitzer judges also awarded Richard Powers’ innovative novel “The Overstory” the fiction prize and named David W. Blight’s 900-page “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom” the best work of history.

On Monday, the biography prize went to Jeffrey C. Stewart’s “The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke,” and the drama award to “Fairview,” by Jackie Sibblies Drury. Eliza Griswold’s “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America” won for general nonfiction, and Ellen Reid’s opera “p r i s m” for music. The poetry award was given to Forrest Gander’s elegiac “Be With.”

Franklin, who died last summer, is the first woman singled out for an honorary Pulitzer, which has been given to Bob Dylan and John Coltrane, among others.

A team of Associated Press journalists won a Pulitzer in international reporting for their work documenting torture, graft and starvation in Yemen’s brutal civil war.

Reporter Maggie Michael, photographer Nariman El-Mofty and videographer Maad al-Zikry spent a year uncovering atrocities and suffering in Yemen.

In a series of stories, they told of how people in parts of Yemen were reduced to eating leaves while corrupt officials diverted international food aid.

Reuters also won for international reporting for work that cost two of its staffers their liberty: shedding light on a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by security forces in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of violating the country’s Official Secrets Act. Their supporters say the two were framed in retaliation for their reporting.

Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play “Fairview,” which skewers white people’s obsession with African American stereotypes, won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

“Fairview” begins as a contemporary domestic comedy involving a well-off black family and ends with the invisible fourth wall destroyed and the audience pulled down a rabbit hole involving race and identity.

The Pulitzer board called it a “hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors’ community to face deep-seated prejudices.”

The play was originally commissioned and produced by Soho Rep and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Sibblies Drury is New York City-based playwright whose plays include “Really, “Social Creatures” and “We Are Proud to Present a Presentation.”

Ellen Reid, the Los Angeles composer whose debut opera centered on a young woman’s agonizing struggle with the psychological effects of sexual assault, won the Pulitzer for music.

Reid’s opera, “prism,” premiered in November as part of Los Angeles Opera’s Off Grand series for experimental works. Times critic Mark Swed hailed the piece as brilliant, writing that Reid, who was 35 at the time, is “a maker of wonder, mystery, suspense, fear and glory. Notes slide into one another as if guided by a secret force. Melodies are endless and inventively transformed, the atmospheric pressure ever changing.”

The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in 1917, and they have come to be considered the field’s most prestigious honor in the U.S.

The contest was established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer.

Winners of the public service award receive a gold medal. The other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.</s>NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the Pulitzer Prizes (all times local):

Jackie Sibblies Drury's play "Fairview," which skewers white people's obsession with African American stereotypes, has won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

"Fairview" begins as a contemporary domestic comedy involving a well-off black family and ends with the invisible fourth wall destroyed and the audience pulled down a rabbit hole involving race and identity.

The Pulitzer board called it a "hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors' community to face deep-seated prejudices."

The play was originally commissioned and produced by Soho Rep and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Sibblies Drury is New York City-based playwright whose plays include "Really, "Social Creatures" and "We Are Proud to Present a Presentation."

Three Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded to newspapers for their coverage of gun violence.

The Pulitzer for public service was awarded Monday to the South Florida Sun Sentinel for its coverage of the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. Seventeen students and staff were killed in the shooting.

The prize for breaking news reporting went to went to the staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for coverage of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October. That attack killed 11 people.

The Capital Gazette was given a special citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its own newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. The newspaper published on schedule the day after the shooting claimed five staffers' lives. It was one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history. The man charged in the attack had a longstanding grudge against the paper.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have been awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting on President Donald Trump.

The Journal won its Pulitzer in national reporting for its investigations of hush money payments orchestrated by the president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to silence women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.

The New York Times was awarded a Pulitzer in explanatory reporting for investigation of Trump family tax schemes that helped the president's father pass on millions of dollars to his children while minimizing inheritance taxes.

Trump has denied having affairs with the women.

He has also denied that his family did anything improper regarding his taxes, calling the Times report a "hit piece."

Aretha Franklin has been given an honorary Pulitzer Prize, cited posthumously for her extraordinary career.

Pulitzer judges also awarded Richard Powers' innovative novel "The Overstory" the fiction prize and named David W. Blight's 900-page "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom" the best work of history.

On Monday, the biography prize went to Jeffrey C. Stewart's "The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke," and the drama award to "Fairview," by Jackie Sibblies Drury. Eliza Griswold's "Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America" won for general nonfiction, and Ellen Reid's opera "p r i s m" for music. The poetry award was given to Forrest Gander's elegiac "Be With."

Franklin, who died last summer, is the first woman singled out for an honorary Pulitzer, which has been given to Bob Dylan and John Coltrane, among others.

A team of Associated Press journalists has won a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for their work documenting torture, graft and starvation in Yemen's brutal civil war.

The prize was announced Monday in New York at Columbia University.

Reporter Maggie Michael, photographer Nariman El-Mofty and videographer Maad al-Zikry spent a year uncovering atrocities and suffering in Yemen.

In a series of stories, they told of how people in parts of Yemen were reduced to eating leaves while corrupt officials diverted international food aid.

Reuters also won for international reporting for work that cost two of its staffers their liberty: shedding light on a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by security forces in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of violating the country's Official Secrets Act. Their supporters say the two were framed in retaliation for their reporting.

The newest winners of the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and the arts are set to be revealed.

This year's honorees will be announced Monday at Columbia University in New York.

The journalism awards will recognize exceptional work in 2018 by U.S. newspapers, magazines and online outlets. There are 14 categories for reporting, photography, criticism, commentary and cartoons.

Arts prizes are awarded in seven categories, including fiction, drama and music.

The first journalism prizes were awarded in 1917, and they have come to be considered the field's most prestigious honor in the U.S.

The contest was established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer.

Winners of the public service award receive a gold medal. The other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.</s>A US local newspaper has won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of a mass shooting in its own newsroom.

But there was no celebration as in learned on Monday it had won the most prestigious prize in American journalism, the reported.

The staff quietly hugged in memory of five colleagues slain when a gunman burst into their office in June 2018.

Pulitzers also went to and for investigations of US

in Annapolis won a special Pulitzer Prize citation for its coverage and courage in the face of one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in American history.

The Pulitzer board awarded the citation with a $100,000 grant to further the newspaper's journalism.

Employees John McNamara, Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, and died in last summer's attack.

But the staff still managed to publish a newspaper on schedule the next day.

A man with a longstanding grudge against is charged with the attack. He pleaded not guilty last year.

Coverage of mass shootings netted Pulitzers for two other local newspapers.

received a breaking news award for its "immersive, compassionate" reporting of last October's attack at a synagogue that left 11 people dead.

And the Sun Sentinel won a Pulitzer for its reporting on the February 2018 mass shooting at that left 17 dead.

It received the public service award for "exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly shooting rampage".

won a prize for explanatory reporting of Trump's finances and tax avoidance and another for editorial writing.

won the national reporting prize for uncovering the president's secret payoffs to two alleged former mistresses during his campaign.

also won two Pulitzers for photojournalism in and for criticism.</s>Coverage of gun violence and President Donald Trump's personal and business life won multiple Pulitzer Prizes on Monday.

The public service award, considered the most prestigious of the 14 Pulitzers given for journalism, went to the South Florida Sun Sentinel for its coverage of the circumstances of and fallout from the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won the award for breaking news reporting for "immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief," the Pulitzer board, based at Columbia University in New York, wrote on its website.

The Pulitzer Board also issued a special citation to the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Maryland, for its coverage of the shooting that took the lives of five of the newspaper's journalists, and awarded the paper $100,000 "to further the newspaper's journalistic mission."

At the Pulitzer announcement, the prize administrator, Dana Canedy, also recognized the work of the Eagle Eye, the student newspaper of Stoneman Douglas High School, for the publication of obituaries of their classmates.

"We took their submission very seriously. If you do something you're proud of at your school, submit it," Canedy said.

Two major stories involving the president were recognized by the Pulitzer committee. David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times were awarded the prize for explanatory reporting for their investigation into Trump's history of tax-avoidance schemes, showing that much of his financial foundation was inherited from his father.

The staff of The Wall Street Journal won the award for national reporting for its coverage of hush-money payments to two women who alleged they had sexual relationships with Trump.

No awards were given for coverage of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, though reporting on the subject won two awards the previous year.

Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle of The Los Angeles Times won the Pulitzer for investigative reporting for their work uncovering a sexual harassment allegations made against a doctor who worked at the University of Southern California.</s>Capital Gazette staff members stayed silent and somberly exchanged hugs when the Maryland newspaper won a special Pulitzer Prize citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its newsroom.

Before the announcement, newspaper employees gathered in their newsroom to remember the five staff members who were shot and killed last June in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in US history.

“Since it’s so connected to something so tragic, there was no euphoric pop-off of excitement.”

The Capital Gazette, based in the Maryland state capital of Annapolis, published on schedule the day after the shooting attack. The man charged in the attack had a longstanding grudge against the newspaper.

Capital Gazette editor Rick Hutzell said the paper had submitted entries in five categories, including a joint entry with The Baltimore Sun for breaking news.

Although the Capital Gazette did not win in any of the five categories, the Pulitzer board awarded the citation with an extraordinary 100,000-dollar grant to further its journalism.

The Pulitzer board said the citation honours the journalists, staff and editorial board of the newspaper “for their courageous response to the largest killing of journalists in US history in their newsroom” and for an “unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief”.

Mr Hutzell said he thought the Pulitzer board handled its decision admirably.

“Clearly, there were a lot of mixed feelings,” Mr Hutzell said. “No one wants to win an award for something that kills five of your friends.”

He also said the paper was aware it would be facing stiff competition.

“It’s very difficult when you are reporting in some ways on yourself,” he said. “That’s not what we do. We’re behind the camera, not in front of it.”

Employees John McNamara, Wendi Winters, Rebecca Smith, Gerald Fischman and Rob Hiaasen were killed in the attack last June 28.

The shooting did not stop other workers from covering it and putting out a newspaper the next day, with assistance from colleagues at The Baltimore Sun, which is owned by the same company.

Joshua McKerrow, a photographer for the newspaper, said the staff remained “stone silent” for about a minute after learning about the citation.

Capital Gazette reporter Rachael Pacella said the citation provided a “big sense of validation for the staff”.

“It’s been a challenge returning to work,” she said. “It lets you know that the additional stress you’ve endured going back to work has been worth it and appreciated.”

Features reporter Selene San Felice said she had to compose herself in a bathroom before the prizes were announced.

She initially was not sure how to react to the special citation.

“At first, I thought that meant they just feel bad for us. And that’s not true, because there are a lot of people you can feel bad for right now. We’ve really earned this,” she said.

Jarrod Ramos, the man charged in the newsroom shooting, had a history of harassing the newspaper’s journalists. He filed a lawsuit against the paper in 2012, alleging he was defamed in an article about his conviction in a criminal harassment case in 2011. The suit was dismissed as groundless.

Ramos’s trial is scheduled to start in November. He pleaded not guilty last year to first-degree murder charges. April 29 is the deadline for lawyers to change his plea to not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.</s>Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to news organisations that uncovered instances of malfeasance and outright in US Donald Trumps financial past, recognising journalists perseverance in the face of his ever-sharper attacks on a free press.

Among the honours that were announced on Monday, received the explanatory reporting prize for an 18-month investigation that revealed how the future and his relatives avoided paying roughly half a billion dollars' worth of taxes.

The Times's examination of Trump's family finances, by the journalists David Barstow, and Russ Buettner, drew on tens of thousands of pages of confidential records and previously undisclosed tax returns. The award was the fourth Pulitzer win for Barstow, a record for a

won the national reporting award for disclosing clandestine payoffs made by the President's associates before the 2016 election to two women who had alleged affairs with Trump.

won the investigative reporting prize for revealing accusations of sexual abuse against a at the

The Sun Sentinel won the prize for public service, considered the most prestigious of the Pulitzers, for documenting the massacre of 17 people at the in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. The paper's in-depth revealed a series of failures by local officials and that contributed to the loss of life.

"Feeling overwhelmed and grateful," a Sun Sentinel reporter, Scott Travis, wrote on after learning of the honour. "But also sad that we won the greatest journalism award - the Pulitzer - because of a tragedy that never should have happened."

won for breaking news coverage of a gunman's spree at the Tree of in October 2018, where 11 people died.

The Pulitzer board also recognised of Annapolis, Maryland, where five employees were killed in a shooting last June, with a special citation that included a $100,000 bequest.

Dana Canedy, the awards' administrator, on Monday cited The Capital Gazette's "unflagging commitment to covering news at a time of unspeakable grief".

In honouring The Sun Sentinel, The and The Capital Gazette, the Pulitzer board underlined the importance of local journalism at a moment when regional papers are struggling to survive.

In the international reporting category, the year's winners included Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, journalists imprisoned for more than a year in Their reporting, on human rights violations against Rohingya Muslims in the Southeast Asian nation, shared the prize with coverage by of atrocities in

First given in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are presented annually by for excellence in journalism and letters.</s>Pulitzers honor coverage of 3 US mass shootings in 2018

NEW YORK (AP) — The South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday and were recognized along with the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Maryland, for their coverage of three horrifying mass shootings in 2018 at a high school, a synagogue and a newsroom itself.

The Associated Press won in the international reporting category for documenting the humanitarian horrors of Yemen's civil war, while The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal received Pulitzers for delving into President Donald Trump's finances and breaking open the hush-money scandals involving two women who said they had affairs with him.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel won the Pulitzer in public service for its coverage of the massacre that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and for detailing the shortcomings in school discipline and security that contributed to the carnage.

The Post-Gazette received the prize in the breaking news category for its reporting on the synagogue shooting rampage that left 11 people dead. The man awaiting trial in the attack railed against Jews before, during and after the massacre, authorities said.

After the Pulitzer announcement, the newsroom observed a moment of silence for the victims.

"We are not so much celebrating as affirming ... the job we were put on this earth to do," David Schribman, the now-retired executive editor who led the coverage, told the newsroom.

The Capital Gazette was given a special citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its own newsroom. The newspaper published on schedule the day after the shooting claimed five staffers' lives, in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history.

The man charged in the shooting had a longstanding grudge against the paper. The Pulitzer board awarded Capital Gazette an extraordinary $100,000 grant to further its journalism.

The Pulitzers, U.S. journalism's highest honor, reflected a year when journalism increasingly came under attack in other ways.

Reuters won an international reporting award for work that cost two of its staffers their liberty: shedding light on a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by security forces in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of violating the country's Official Secrets Act. Their supporters say the two were framed in retaliation for their reporting.

The AP's international reporting prize went to a team of journalists who spent a year documenting atrocities and suffering in Yemen, illuminating the human toll of its four-year-old civil war.

As a result of the work by reporter Maggie Michael, photographer Nariman El-Mofty and video journalist Maad al-Zikry, at least 80 prisoners were released from secret detention sites, and the United Nations rushed food and medicine to areas where the AP revealed that people were starving while corrupt officials diverted international food aid.

Staffers broke out into applause at the AP's headquarters in New York, as Michael and al-Zikry watched via video screens from various locales.

"This is a story that everybody was not really paying good attention, and we're very happy to be able to draw some attention to it," Michael said.

In the U.S., journalists have been contending with attacks on the media's integrity from the president on down. Trump has branded coverage of his administration "fake news" and assailed the media as the "enemy of the people."

Monday's wins by the Times and The Wall Street Journal may provoke further ire from the president, who recently suggested the Times and The Washington Post should be stripped of the Pulitzers they won last year for coverage of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Attorney General William Barr announced last month that special counsel Robert Mueller's nearly two-year investigation found no evidence that Trump or his campaign colluded with Moscow to sway the vote.

This year, the Times was recognized for laying out how a president who has portrayed himself as a largely self-made man has, in fact, received over $400 million in family money and helped his family avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

Trump, who has broken with presidential precedent by refusing to release his income tax returns, has called the Times expose a false "hit piece."

The Journal revealed last year that then-candidate Trump's personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen had paid $130,000 in the run-up to his 2016 election to silence porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump.

Federal prosecutors have said Trump directed Cohen to make the payments to quash a potential campaign-season sex scandal. Trump has said the payments were a private matter unrelated to his presidential bid.

Earlier, the Journal disclosed that the National Enquirer's parent company reached a $150,000 deal to pay former Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal for her story of an affair with Trump. Trump has denied having affairs with either woman.

The Los Angeles Times took the investigative reporting prize for stories that revealed hundreds of sexual abuse accusations against a recently retired University of Southern California gynecologist. The university recently agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit by paying $215 million to potentially thousands of female students and alumni examined by Tyndall, who has denied the allegations and has not been charged with any crime.

The local reporting prize went to The Advocate of Louisiana for work that led to a state constitutional amendment abolishing Louisiana's unusual practice of allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts in felony trials. The split-verdict rule was blamed for contributing to racial disparities in a state where black people make up about one-third of the population but two-thirds of prisoners.

ProPublica won the feature reporting award for what the judges described as "powerful, intimate narratives" about Salvadoran immigrants affected by a federal crackdown on the MS-13 gang.

The prizes were established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. The first journalism prizes were awarded in 1917. Winners of the public service award receive a gold medal. The other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.</s>After a year that included yet another string of horrific mass shootings, the Pulitzer Prize board paid homage to the journalistic response to the tragedies on Monday.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel claimed the Pulitzer for Public Service for its reporting on the “failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after” the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, while the staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won the award for breaking news reporting for its “immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.”

And the Pulitzer board paid homage to the staff of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, with a “special citation” to honor the paper for its “courageous response to the largest killing of journalists in U.S. history in their newsroom on June 28, 2018, and for demonstrating unflagging commitment to covering the news and serving their community at a time of unspeakable grief.”

As part of the citation, the board will extend a $100,000 bequest to the Capital Gazette to advance its journalistic mission.

The awards were announced Monday afternoon at Columbia University in New York City. Before revealing the winners, Pulitzer Administrator Dana Canedy offered her “sincere admiration” toward a group of journalists who did not claim a prize: the staff of The Eagle Eye, the student newspaper at Marjory Stoneman Douglass, which submitted its obituaries of students and coaches who were killed in the February 2018 shooting.

“There is hope in their example,” Canedy said at the ceremony.

Canedy said the board considered “an especially competitive field of nominees,” which included some thorough and critical coverage of President Donald Trump in the national reporting category.

That award went to the staff of the Wall Street Journal for its reporting on the hush money payments made to two women during the 2016 campaign who allegedly had affairs with Trump.

The Journal edged out the Associated Press and the New York Times, which were finalists for the national reporting award.

The AP was recognized for its coverage of the Trump administration’s migrant family separation policy while the Times, with contributions from Carole Cadwalladr of The Guardian/Observer, was a finalist for its reporting on Cambridge Analytica’s theft of private information on Facebook, which was used to support Trump’s election campaign.

The Pulitzer is the most prestigious prize in journalism, and the announcement is one of the most highly-anticipated days for many newsrooms. Every year, the award inspires handicappers to guess which publications and reporters will claim the honors.

In previewing this year’s race, Roy Harris, a Pulitzer maven, looked for clues in the other journalism awards that had already been handed out. Writing for Poynter on Monday, Harris noted that the South Florida Sun Sentinel won the Scripps breaking news award for its coverage of the Parkland school shooting, while the Journal’s hush money reporting was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

The winners do often reflect the zeitgeist, as was the case last year when reporting that helped give rise to the #MeToo movement was recognized.

Kendrick Lamar made history last year by becoming the first rapper to ever win a Pulitzer, as he was recognized for his album “Damn.” No such history was made this year, though the Pulitzer board did honor another musical icon.

Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul” who died in August, was given a special posthumous citation for her contribution to American music.

Here are some of the other journalism prizes awarded on Monday afternoon:

Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times

David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times

Maggie Michael, Maad al-Zikry and Nariman El-Mofty of Associated Press and Staff of Reuters, with notable contributions from Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo

Brent Staples of The New York Times</s>Pulitzers Awarded to Newsrooms for Coverage of 3 Mass Shootings

NEW YORK—The South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday and were recognized along with the Capital Gazette of Maryland for their coverage of the horrifying mass shootings in 2018 at a high school, a synagogue and a newsroom itself.

The Associated Press won in the international reporting category for documenting the humanitarian horrors of Yemen’s civil war, while The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were honored for delving into President Donald Trump’s finances and breaking open the hush-money scandals involving two women who said they had affairs with him.

The Florida paper received the Pulitzer in public service for its coverage of the massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and for detailing the shortcomings in school discipline and security that contributed to the carnage.

The Post-Gazette was honored in the breaking news category for its reporting on the synagogue rampage that left 11 people dead. The man awaiting trial in the attack railed against Jews before, during and after the massacre, authorities said.

After the Pulitzer announcement, the newsroom in Pittsburgh observed a moment of silence for the victims. At the Sun Sentinel, too, the staff took in the award in a sober spirit.

“We’re mindful of what it is that we won for,” Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson said. “There are still families grieving, so it’s not joy, it’s almost … I don’t know how to describe it. We’re emotional, as well.”

So, too, at the Capital Gazette, which was given a special citation for its coverage and courage in the face of a massacre in its own newsroom. The Pulitzer board also gave the paper an extraordinary $100,000 grant to further its journalism.

“Clearly, there were a lot of mixed feelings,” editor Rick Hutzell said. “No one wants to win an award for something that kills five of your friends.”

The Annapolis-based newspaper published on schedule, with some help from The Baltimore Sun, the day after five staffers were shot and killed in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history. The man charged had a longstanding grudge against the paper.

The Pulitzers, U.S. journalism’s highest honor, reflected a year when journalism also came under attack in other ways.

Reuters won an international reporting award for work that cost two of its staffers their liberty: coverage of a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims by security forces in Myanmar.

Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are serving a seven-year sentence after being convicted of violating the country’s Official Secrets Act. Their supporters say the two were arrested in retaliation for their reporting.

Reuters also won the breaking news photography award for images of Central American migrants heading to the U.S.

The AP’s international reporting prize went to a team of journalists who documented atrocities and suffering in Yemen, illuminating the human toll of its 4-year-old civil war.

As a result of the work by reporter Maggie Michael, photographer Nariman El-Mofty and video journalist Maad al-Zikry, at least 80 prisoners were released from secret detention sites, and the United Nations rushed food and medicine to areas where the AP revealed that people were starving while corrupt officials diverted international food aid.

“This is a story that everybody was not really paying good attention, and we’re very happy to be able to draw some attention to it,” Michael said.

Images of the famine in Yemen also brought a feature photography award for The Washington Post. The Post’s book critic, Carlos Lozada, won the criticism prize for what the judges called “trenchant and searching” work.

In the U.S., journalists have been contending with attacks on the media’s integrity from the president on down. Trump has branded coverage of his administration “fake news” and assailed the media as the “enemy of the people.”

Monday’s wins by the Times and The Wall Street Journal and freelance cartoonist Darrin Bell may further anger the president.

The Times won the explanatory reporting Pulitzer for laying out how a president who has portrayed himself as a largely self-made man has, in fact, received over $400 million in family money and helped his family avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. Trump has called the Times expose a false “hit piece.”

The Journal took the national reporting award for its investigations of payments orchestrated by the president’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to buy the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels and a Playboy centerfold. Trump has denied having affairs with them.

Bell, the editorial cartooning winner, called out “lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration,” the Pulitzer judges said.

The Los Angeles Times took the investigative reporting prize for stories that revealed hundreds of sexual abuse accusations against a recently retired University of Southern California gynecologist, who has denied the allegations. The university recently agreed to a $215 million settlement with the alleged victims.

The local reporting prize went to The Advocate of Louisiana for work that led to a state constitutional amendment abolishing Louisiana’s unusual practice of allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts in felony trials.

ProPublica won the feature reporting award for coverage of Salvadoran immigrants affected by a federal crackdown on the MS-13 gang.

Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch received the commentary award for his series of columns about poor people being thrown back in jail in Missouri because they couldn’t afford to pay the costs of a previous stint behind bars.

The New York Times’ Brent Staples received the editorial writing award. The judges said his writing about the nation’s racial history showed “extraordinary moral clarity.”

The journalism prizes, first awarded in 1917, were established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Winners of the public service award receive a gold medal. The other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.

Contributing were Associated Press writers Deepti Hajela in New York; Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans; and Michael Kunzelman in Annapolis, Maryland.
Annapolis, Maryland daily newspaper The Capital is awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of a mass shooting inside its own offices on June 28, 2018, that left five of its employees dead.