Awards and Honors

Our alumni have gone on to win virtually every major industry award from Polk Awards, Peabody Awards, national and local Emmy awards, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) awards, the Goldsmith Prize, Alfred I. duPont awards, National Book Awards, Edward R. Murrow awards, SPJ awards, National Headliner awards, Oscars, Scripps-Howard Awards, Overseas Press Club of America awards, Livingston awards, the Selden Ring Award and more. These are our Pulitzer Prize winners.

Note: All alums and faculty listed below, except editors, are named in official Pulitzer Prize announcements, or whose stories or contributions are listed on the Winning Work section of each year's winning categories on the Pulitzer Prize website. A Pulitzer Prize winner may be an individual, a group of individuals, or a news organization's staff. Up to five individuals may be named on a team entry and should be the strongest contributors to the work. Projects on which more than five journalists made substantial contributions must be submitted as staff entries. The Public Service Prize is always awarded to a news organization, not an individual, although an individual may be named in the citation.

As the Poynter Institute reported, editors of winning entries and the names of the heads of news organizations are not listed officially along with their Pulitzer Prize-winning staff members. “...One scorecard that nonetheless is often used to recognize the achievements of executive editors, editors-in-chief, and managing editors at daily newspapers is how many Pulitzer Prizes their news organization notched under their direction.”

We include them to honor their contributions.

 

 

2026: Alum Susie Neilson (’19) shared the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting with Megan Fan Munce and Sara DiNatale for their San Francisco Chronicle series “Burned." The series exposes how insurance companies used algorithmic tools that “failed Californians who lost their homes to fire by systematically undervaluing their properties, denying claims and making it impossible for them to rebuild," according to the Pulitzer announcement. The series was done with the support of more than a dozen colleagues, including Berkeley Journalism alum, visuals editor Maggie Beidelman (’13).

Alum Garance Burke (’04), global investigative journalist at The Associated Press, shared the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting with colleagues Dake Kang, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Yael Grauer for what the jury called “an astonishing global investigation into state-of-the-art tools of mass surveillance created in Silicon Valley, advanced in China and spreading worldwide before returning to America for secret new uses by the U.S. Border Patrol." AP video producer Serginho Roosblad (’18) contributed reporting.

The staff of the Minnesota Star Tribune, led by alum Kathleen Hennessey (’04), editor and senior vice president, won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for the publication’s coverage of a shooting at a back-to-school Mass at a Catholic school where two children were killed and 17 wounded. The Pulitzer jury noted the coverage as “powerful stories marked by thoroughness and compassion.” Andy Mannix (’15) contributed reporting.

2025: Parker Yesko (’16) and Catherine Winter (’87) were on The New Yorker team that won the Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting for the investigative podcast “In the Dark” about the 2006 US massacre at Haditha. Greg Winter (’00), international managing editor of The New York Times, was an editor on two Pulitzer Prize winning stories: one for explanatory reporting for the investigation that uncovered a campaign of forced disappearances in Afghanistan and another in international reporting for coverage of the ongoing civil war in Sudan. In a note to staff from Philip P. Pan, the International editor of The New York Times published on the New York Times website, said ..."And, of course, I’m grateful to Greg Winter. Greg is an extraordinary editor. He shaped much of the work on Sudan and also much of the work on Afghanistan you’ll hear about later. I called Greg a genius on these stairs two years ago, and I stand by that." Emma Brown (’09) was part of the Washington Post team that won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News coverage for urgent and illuminating coverage of the July 13 attempt to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, including detailed storytelling and sharp analysis that coupled traditional police reporting with audio and visual forensics.

2024: Brett Murphy (’16), a reporter on ProPublica’s national desk, won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Judges noted the ProPublica team’s “Groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court to reveal how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel, pushing the Court to adopt its first code of conduct.” Murphy reached out to his alma mater to hire two Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) students Kathleen Quinn (’24) and Marissa Muller (’24) to do Bay Area-based research for the project. ProPublica’s Managing Editor Tracy Weber (’89) was an editor on the series. Sarah Cahlan (’19) was part of the team at The Washington Post that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series of stories about the AR-15, the rifle most commonly used in the nation’s deadliest mass shootings.

2023: Serginho Roosblad (‘18), a video producer for the Associated Press, was on the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for “Courageous reporting from the besieged city of Mariupol that bore witness to the slaughter of civilians in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” International Managing Editor Greg Winter (’00) and video journalist Yousur Al-Hlou (’14) were on the staff of The New York Times that won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for "unflinching coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including an eight-month investigation into Ukrainian deaths in the town of Bucha and the Russian unit responsible for the killings". Melanie Mason (’10) was part of the Los Angeles Times team that won for Breaking News Reporting for revealing a secretly recorded conversation among Los Angeles city officials that included racist comments.

2022: Sarah Cahlan (‘19), Ariel Plotnick (‘18) and Emma Brown (’09) were among the staff at The Washington Post awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the costs, causes and aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

2021: Berkeley Journalism Lecturer and graduate of the UC Berkeley School of Law Abbie VanSickle was the lead reporter on a year-long investigation into the injuries caused by police dog bites that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting. Michelle Pitcher (‘21) was on the team. Four recent graduates Barbara Harvey (’20), Alex Matthews (’20), Yuriria Ávila (’21) and Chloe Reynolds (‘21) contributed to the, “courageous, prescient and sweeping coverage of the coronavirus pandemic” that won The New York Times the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Austin Ramzy (‘03) was credited for the Times’ victims front page story and “Live Briefing: Coronavirus Death Toll Climbs in China, and a Lockdown Widens.” Andy Mannix (‘15), of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis authored one of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories in the Breaking News category. The Tribune's coverage was honored for its, “urgent, authoritative and nuanced coverage of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis and of the reverberations that followed.”

2020: Tracy Weber (’89) of ProPublica edited an investigation into America’s 7th Fleet after a series of deadly naval accidents in the Pacific that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Lucas Waldron (‘17) contributed reporting.

2019: Stephen Hobbs (’14) was on The South Florida Sun Sentinel team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, “for exposing failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the deadly shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.” He was also among the finalists in the Breaking News category. Alexandra Berzon (‘06) was on the team at The Wall Street Journal that won the top prize for National Reporting “for uncovering President Trump’s secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment.”

2018: New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (’98) was part of a team of Times journalists including Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Kathleen Lund Coates (’78), Robert Digitale (’79), Julie Johnson (’09), Diane Peterson (’82) and Brett Wilkison (’08) were among the team that covered the Wine Country wildfires, which devastated the North Bay region, earning journalism’s top prize for breaking news.

2017: Carrie Ching (’05) produced an animated video for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) depicting the unseen victims of offshore finance for "The Panama Papers", a large investigative project with reporters, producers and editors around the world that won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

2015: The Seattle Times staff won a Pulitzer Prize for its breaking news reporting of a mudslide in Washington state that killed 43 people in March 2014. The Times staff includes J-School alums Jim Simon (’84), a deputy managing editor for the paper, business reporter Ángel González (’03), and reporter Alexa Vaughn (’11). In the wake of the mudslide, the paper also investigated whether people should have been living in that area to begin with, and if the tragedy could have been avoided. Gregory Winter (’00) an editor for the New York Times‘ international desk, won an award in the International Reporting category for the paper’s coverage of the Ebola outbreak in Africa. The Pulitzer board honored the paper for its “courageous front-line reporting and vivid human stories”.

2009: Alexandra Berzon (’06) won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a series of investigative stories exposing the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip amid lax enforcement of regulations, leading to changes in policy and improved safety conditions.

2008: Chris Jenkins (’00) was on The Washington Post team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre.

2004: Professors David Barstow and Lowell Bergman won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a joint project with The New York Times, PBS FRONTLINE and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that exposed worker death and dismemberment at an Alabama iron pipe company. James Sandler (’03) and undergrad student Robin Stein conducted extensive reporting.

1984: Albert Scardino ('76) won the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing for his series of editorials on various local and state matters, in the Georgia Gazette.

1983: Loretta Tofani (’82) won the Pulitzer Prize in Local Investigative Specialized Reporting for her Washington Post investigation of rape and sexual assault in the Prince George's County, Maryland, Detention Center.