Pulitzer Center Update July 26, 2024
Pulitzer Center Quarter 2 2024 Highlights
Explore the Pulitzer Center's Quarter 2 2024 Report
In May, over 50 Pulitzer Center staff, board members, and grantees gathered for a three-day planning retreat in Panama. We connected with the rainforest—an essential part of the Pulitzer Center’s journalism and impact—and, importantly, held discussions among our global staff about the Center’s mission, future, and the change we hope to see.
The second quarter of 2024 marked a period of transitions: We welcomed Lisa Gibbs as our next CEO and president, and shared our gratitude with Jon Sawyer for his vision in building the Pulitzer Center to be the impactful organization it is today.
Amid these transitions, the work continues: We announced the first cohort of nine StoryReach U.S. Fellows, who will spend the next year reporting and engaging audiences with local outlets in the U.S.—from Maine to Mississippi to Alaska—on issues of racial justice, health, and climate change. We also welcomed 46 student Reporting Fellows from our Campus Consortium colleges and universities, who will travel to 27 countries to report on topics related to the Pulitzer Center’s focus areas.
The Pulitzer Center’s Data and Research team increased efforts to teach investigative journalism methodologies and publish new resources. It also expanded the Amazon Mining Watch platform, enabling journalists and researchers to map deforestation caused by mining in the Amazon, powered by artificial intelligence. In its first three months, the AI Spotlight Series trained over 500 journalists on how to cover and shape the coverage of AI and its influence on society.
Important reporting projects covered the mental health crisis facing teenagers in the West Bank, ocean plastic pollution and the seaweed industry, and the illegal timber market in the Peruvian Amazon. Halfway through 2024, we have supported over 400 stories by 148 journalists reporting in 70 countries.
Our audience engagement efforts continued in our four regional hubs across the U.S., Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia—from thousands of student poems inspired by Pulitzer Center stories, public photo exhibitions in New York City, radio shows reaching millions in Congo and Cameroon, and film screenings with fisherfolk and their families in the Philippines.
“With the powerful journalism we fund, the ways we bring the journalism to schools and universities, to new arenas like outdoor photography exhibitions and community events—the Center is and can lead the way in bringing important stories to reluctant or unreached audiences,” Gibbs said during an event in June.
Welcome, Lisa! Thank you to our ever-growing community for your commitment to our work.