Winners of the 2015 PULITZER Prize

(Baonghean) - Every year, April is always the time that people working in the international press industry always look forward to because that is the time when the prestigious Pulitzer Prize results are announced. This year, the Award Ceremony was held at Columbia University, New York with many impressive victories...

The Pulitzer Prize is an American award, awarded in many fields, the most important of which are journalism and literature. Especially in journalism, the Pulitzer is considered one of the most prestigious awards, held annually to honor outstanding journalistic works in various genres, reflecting typical events in the United States as well as internationally. Joseph Pulitzer, editor of the New York World newspaper, proposed this award in his will written in 1904. At that time, he proposed 13 awards: 4 for journalism, 4 for literature, 4 for theater and 1 for education. Sensitive to change, Pulitzer established an advisory board with the right to change the content of the award. Since 1917, the award has been presented every April by the president of Columbia University. Currently, the Pulitzer Prize has 21 categories: several genres of reporting, editing, cartooning, photography, fiction, biography, theater, poetry and music.

Daniel Berehulak (center) is applauded by his colleagues.

This year's Pulitzer Prizes mostly went to prestigious newspapers in the US. The Public Service Prize went to The Post And Courier for its investigative series on domestic violence in South Carolina through the work titled "Till Death Do Us Part". The Los Angeles Times won two prizes in the Feature Writing category with a series on drought in the US states by journalist Diana Marcum and the "Criticism" category.

However, as expected, the most impressive victory was still that of the New York Times when it received two awards in two different categories on the same topic: the fight against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, including the International Reportage Award and the Feature Photography Award by photographer Daniel Berehulak. The main character of the award, Berehulak, was directly present in areas where the Ebola epidemic was raging such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Facing the danger of his life and possibly being infected with the disease, but it seemed that those challenges could not stop Berehulak, he spent four months reporting in these "hot spots".

Equally impressive in his courage was Ned Parker, the head of the Reuters news agency in Iraq. The report that Parker and his team did was about the lack of internal unity in Iraq and the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). Whenever IS is mentioned, many journalists shake their heads in dismay because many of their colleagues who reported on the battlefield about IS were kidnapped by them, and some of them were never able to return. The efforts of Parker and his colleagues brought him an award in the International Reporting category. Reuters also said that Parker received many threats during his time as a reporter in Iraq, and if he did not return soon, who knows what would happen next.

The winner of each award will receive 10,000 USD, and the award for "Community Service" journalism will be awarded a gold medal. But thinking back, is that worth the effort that true journalists have put in?!! True reporters, day and night facing danger, rushing into the field to bring us valuable information. We can sit in one place, holding the newspaper in our hands and reading, but remember that to get that information, many reporters and journalists have risked their lives to bring the most accurate and fastest information. Let's appreciate and recognize true journalists!

NHAT MINH