Los Angeles Times Wins Two Pulitzer Prizes
The Times was also recognized as a finalist in three categories
The Los Angeles Times today won its 46th and 47th Pulitzer Prizes. Art Critic Christopher Knight received the Prize for Criticism; Immigration Reporter Molly O’Toole was part of a team that received the Prize for Audio Reporting.
Knight, The Times’ art critic since 1989 and a three-time finalist previously, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. According to the Pulitzer board, his work demonstrated “extraordinary community service by a critic, applying his expertise and enterprise to critique a proposed overhaul of the L.A. County Museum of Art and its effect on the institution’s mission.”
Molly O’Toole, who covers immigration and security out of the Washington bureau, shared in the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting with “This American Life” and Vice News. The win is for “The Out Crowd” which the judges described as “revelatory, intimate journalism that illuminates the personal impact of the Trump Administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.”
In addition, Times staff was recognized as finalists in three other categories. A team from Metro, with contributions from across the newsroom, was a finalist in the breaking news category for coverage of the Conception boat fire that killed 34 people off Santa Barbara last September. Steve Lopez was a finalist for the fourth time in the commentary category for his columns on Los Angeles County’s inability to deal with its ever-growing homelessness crisis. In the explanatory reporting category, Rosanna Xia, Swetha Kannan and Terry Castleman were finalists for their in-depth story and interactive game showing the threat of rising seas to California’s coast and the hard choices coastal leaders will have to make.
The complete list of Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists can be found at pulitzer.org. For a listing of Pulitzer Prize-winning work from The Times, visit latimes.com/pulitzers.
