Translate page with Google

Pulitzer Center Update July 29, 2019

Journalism With Impact: Pulitzer Center's Second Quarter of 2019

Author:
Image from VICE by Frederick Bernas & Rayan Hindi. Brazil, 2018.
English

A group of young ballerinas from one of the most violent favelas in Rio de Janeiro use dance to...

author #1 image author #2 image
Multiple Authors

Diversity And Inclusion

In the first six months of 2019, the Pulitzer Center made significant progress in supporting a diverse roster of grantees whose reporting appeared in international, regional, and local outlets.

From January through June of this year, 50 percent of Pulitzer Center journalist-grantees and student fellows self-identified as female, 32 percent self-identified as male, and 1 percent self-identified as non-binary. Forty-one percent of our grantees self-identified as non-white. The graphs above compare 2019 YTD with 2018 grantee diversity data. 

Journalism Impact

In the second quarter of 2019, Pulitzer Center-supported projects led to government investigations, policy changes, and even community-level impacts. Highlights include:

Image from VICE by Frederick Bernas & Rayan Hindi. Brazil, 2018.
Image from VICE by Frederick Bernas & Rayan Hindi. Brazil, 2018.

Pulitzer grantees Frederick Bernas and Rayan Hindi’s documentary for VICE,  "Dancing Through Gunshots in Brazil's Favelas," about a makeshift ballet school for girls in a Rio de Janeiro favela, inspired a crowdfunding campaign that raised enough money to build a permanent community center for the young dancers.

"Construction on the community center began at the end of February and is finally taking shape," Bernas wrote in a recent update on the school for VICE. "This couldn't have happened at a more important time, as right-wing authorities have been sanctioning brutal police violence across Rio, and this building will act as a sanctuary for [the teacher] and her students."

In a recent episode of Patriot Act, a popular weekly comedy show on Netflix, comedian Hasan Minhaj used Pulitzer Center grantee Sam Eaton’s PBS NewsHour story “Amazon Forest Guardians Fight to Prevent Catastrophic Tipping Point” to highlight growing threats to Brazil's Amazon rainforest. The video clip was watched more than 800,000 times on YouTube.

Living victims: Vikas Yadav, 19, and Aman Yadav, 17, brothers, have muscular dystrophy and are being cared for by their mother at their home. Affected by toxic waste which seeped into the groundwater, they will live short, painful lives. Image by Rohit Jain. India, 2018.
Living victims: Vikas Yadav, 19, and Aman Yadav, 17, brothers, have muscular dystrophy and are being cared for by their mother at their home. Affected by toxic waste which seeped into the groundwater, they will live short, painful lives. Image by Rohit Jain. India, 2018. 

Rohit Jain’s Pulitzer Center-supported reporting on children disabled by the Bhopal gas tragedy for The Hindu was used by Bhopal Medical Appeal in its campaign to pressure the Indian government to extend welfare rights to affected children and families. 


After Krithika Varagur's Pulitzer Center-supported project “Foreign Influence in the Balkans” ran in POLITICO and The New York Review of Books, the U.S. National Security Council asked her to share deeper insights from her reporting on jihadism in the Balkans.

Image by Fabio Nascimento. Brazil, 2019.
Image by Fabio Nascimento. Brazil, 2019.

InfoAmazonia, a network of journalists in nine countries, partnered with Colombia's Consejo de Redacción and others for a six-month investigation to expose economic and political drivers of violence against environmental defenders in Latin America.

The result was 16 in-depth stories and a database compiling 1,357 attacks over the last decade. The Rainforest Journalism Fund and the Pulitzer Center were among the supporters of the project, which got wide attention across the Amazon region. The New Yorker credited the project with raising awareness of seizures of indigenous lands by powerful interests seeking to commercially exploit the Amazon rainforest.

A map, designed by cartographer Marcos Brito, depicts all Rainforest Journalism Fund projects reported since the initiative's launch in 2018. Image by Jan Rocha. Brazil, 2019.
A map, designed by cartographer Marcos Brito, depicts all Rainforest Journalism Fund projects reported since the initiative's launch in 2018. Image by Jan Rocha. Brazil, 2019. 

The first convening of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in Manaus, Brazil, in July brought together 80 journalists from around the region to share their reporting on the Amazon, learn from each other, and discuss common issues. Since the initiative's launch a year ago, RJF and the Pulitzer Center have supported 22 in-depth and ambitious reporting projects for Latin American and international news outlets.

Education, Outreach, And Student Fellows

So far this year, the Pulitzer Center has organized nearly 500 events in K-12 schools, colleges, and public venues to showcase and help audiences learn from our grantees' reporting on systemic global problems and solutions, reaching at least 17,000 people. Highlights include:

Students from London Middle School in Arlington Heights, Illinois. United States, 2019.
Students from London Middle School in Arlington Heights, Illinois. United States, 2019.

Students from London Middle School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, who studied Nathaniel Rich's project "Losing Earth" for The New York Times Magazine, were inspired to turn their school into a "no-idling zone," where cars and buses are not permitted to run their engines while they wait for pickup and drop-off.

They presented the article and their initiative to Julie Morrison, a state senator, who started drafting legislation for "No-Idling Zones" at schools across Illinois. 


San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón cited Pulitzer Center grantees Brian Frank and Justin Maxon's project, “Visions of Justice,” a photography workshop for court-involved individuals, as deeply affecting policymakers in San Francisco and encouraging them to think of new solutions. The workshop, supported by the Pulitzer Center in partnership with Project Rebound and CatchLight, has led to Frank and Maxon teaching inside of juvenile detention facilities and schools in areas that are disproportionately affected by mass incarceration. California Sunday Magazine produced a major feature with students from the workshop and did a behind-the-scenes feature on the students who reported on their own communities.

 

Ingrid Holmquist and Sana Malik receiving BAFTA Student Film Award for their film 'Guanajuato Norte'. United States, 2019.
Ingrid Holmquist and Sana Malik receiving BAFTA Student Film Award for their film "Guanajuato Norte". United States, 2019.

In June, Pulitzer Center 2018 student fellows Ingrid Holmquist and Sana Malik were awarded the BAFTA Student Film Award for Documentary in Santa Monica, California. Their film, Guanajuato Norte, tells the story of a migrant farm worker in Connecticut and the family he left behind in Mexico.

Image from panel discussion following the premiere of 'This Little Land of Mines'. United States, 2019.
Image from panel discussion following the premiere of This Little Land of Mines. United States, 2019.

A feature-length documentary by Erin McGoff, an American University graduate and former Pulitzer Center student fellow, got its world premiere at the Landmark Bethesda Row Theater this month. This Little Land of Mines, which got seed funding from the Pulitzer Center, looks at the long-term effects of U.S. bombing in Laos during the Vietnam War—and the 80 million unexploded ordnances that remain. It is a nominee for Best Feature Documentary at the Stockholm Independent Film Festival and an official selection of the Mill Valley Film Festival. It will screen in Dallas, Vermont, Arizona, California, and Barcelona, Spain, and has been picked up by Journeyman Pictures.

SECTIONS
Mushrooming disaster: Thanks to logging, cattle ranching, and industrial agriculture, 16 percent of the Amazon has already been deforested. Image by Sam Eaton. Brazil, 2018.
English

Tropical forests are tipping from carbon sink to source, threatening a crucial hedge against runaway...

Living victims: Vikas Yadav, 19, and Aman Yadav, 17, brothers, have muscular dystrophy and are being cared for by their mother at their home. Affected by toxic waste which seeped into the groundwater, they will live short, painful lives. Image by Rohit Jain. India, 2018.
English

Reports of congenital disabilities are significantly higher in the northern part of Bhopal, where...

Media file: sarajevo-rooftops-with-catholic-and-orthodox-cathedrals_charles-bowman_getty_cs.jpg
English

Krithika Varagur reports on foreign religious and political investment in the Balkans, focusing on...

Image by Favio Nascimento. Brazil, 2019.
English

A six-month transnational investigation into the economic and political drivers of violence against...

author #1 image author #2 image
Multiple Authors
Media file: 4_antarctica_01_copy.jpg
English

Project

Losing Earth

Thirty years ago, we could have saved the planet. The world was ready to act. But we failed to do...

author #1 image author #2 image
Multiple Authors
After leading the gang unit on a high speed car chase, a boy sits in custody while members of the unit chase his friends on foot through the neighborhood.  No weapons or drugs were found on any of the boys and after investigating, none were members of a gang and they ran because they were afraid of police. Image by Brian L. Frank/2017 Catchlight Fellow. United States, 2018.
English

The “Visions of Justice” workshop immerses court involved youth in visual storytelling as a means to...

author #1 image author #2 image
Multiple Authors
Screenshot from "Guanajuato Norte," a film produced by Ingrid Holmquist and Sana Malik. United States, 2018.
English

Every year, men from Mexico travel to work on farms in Connecticut, leaving behind families and...

author #1 image author #2 image
Multiple Authors
A UXO Lao demonstration in the Xieng Khouang Province in northern Laos. Image by Erin McGoff. Laos, 2017.
English

Erin McGoff is producing a full-length feature independent documentary titled "Little Land of Mines"...

RELATED TOPICS

yellow halftone illustration of an elephant

Topic

Environment and Climate Change

Environment and Climate Change
teal halftone illustration of two children, one holding up a teddy bear

Topic

Children and Youth

Children and Youth
teal halftone illustration of praying hands

Topic

Religion

Religion
yellow halftone illustration of two people standing back to back

Topic

Land Rights

Land Rights
a yellow halftone illustration of a truck holding logs

Topic

Rainforests

Rainforests
teal halftone illustration of a family carrying luggage and walking

Topic

Migration and Refugees

Migration and Refugees
war and conflict reporting

Topic

War and Conflict

War and Conflict
Criminal Justice

Topic

Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice
teal halftone illustration of a young indigenous person

Topic

Indigenous Rights

Indigenous Rights

RELATED CONTENT