Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Wins Pulitzer For Tree Of Life Coverage

Image by Stringer/Leigh Vogel/Stringer

By PJ Grisar April 15, 2019

On April 15, the Pulitzer Prize announced its 2019 winners and finalists in the fields of journalism, literature and drama.

Among the winners was the staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which was recognized in the category of Breaking News Reporting for coverage of the Tree of Life shooting.

The Post-Gazette was lauded for reporting that “captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.” In November, the Forward’s Jane Eisner spoke with the Post-Gazette’s Executive Editor David Shribman and his wife, journalist and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Cindy Skrzyck, about what it was like to cover a tragedy so close to home.

Hannah Dreier of ProPublica also won a Pulitzer in Feature Writing for her series on Salvadorian immigrants in Long Island affected by a government crackdown on MS-13.

Other winners on the journalism side include the staff of the Wall Street Journal for breaking the story of Donald Trump’s hush money payments to two women during his campaign and David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of The New York Times for their exposé on Trump’s familial fortune and the tax loopholes the real estate dynasty used to help it grow.

Max Boot was a finalist in Biography for “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.”

The late Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin will be posthumously awarded a special citation “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture intern. He can be reached at Grisar@Forward.com.

PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at grisar@forward.com and @pjgrisar on Twitter.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO