The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is an award administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism "for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool".
Winners and citations
The Commentary Pulitzer has been awarded to one person annually without exception—45 prizes in 44 years 1970–2014. No person has won it twice.
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|The New York Times
|"for columns on the media whose subjects range from threats to cable television's profit-making power to ISIS's use of modern media to menace its enemies."
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|The Wall Street Journal
|"for columns from Ukraine, sometimes reported near heavy fighting, deepening readers' insights into the causes behind the conflict with Russia and the nature and motives of the people involved."
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!rowspan=3 |2016
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|The Boston Globe
|"for extensively reported columns that probe the legacy of busing in Boston and its effect on education in the city with a clear eye on ongoing racial contradictions."
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|The New York Times
|"for courageously reported and deeply felt columns focused on the crisis of refugees from Syria and other war-torn regions."
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for richly nuanced columns written in an elegant voice illuminating huge inequalities in wealth and opportunity in contemporary Los Angeles."
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!rowspan=3 |2017
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|The Wall Street Journal
|"for rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation's most divisive political campaigns."
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|Chicago Tribune
|"for bold, clear columns by a writer who cast aside sacred cows and conventional wisdom to speak powerfully and passionately about politics and race in Chicago and beyond."
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|The Philadelphia Inquirer
|"for eloquent commentary written in world hotspots from Molenbeek near Brussels to the chancelleries of Beijing, reminding Americans of the importance of the foreign beat during a year when their tendency was to turn inward."
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!rowspan=3 |2018
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|Alabama Media Group
|"for lyrical and courageous commentary that is rooted in Alabama but has a national resonance in scrutinizing corrupt politicians, championing the rights of women and calling out hypocrisy."
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|The New Yorker
|"for combining masterful writing with a deep knowledge of history and a deft reporter's touch to bring context and clarity to the issue of race at a time when respectful dialogue on the subject often gives way to finger-pointing and derision."
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for graceful columns rich in detail that vividly illustrated how the crippling cost of housing in California is becoming an existential crisis for the state."
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!rowspan=3 |2019
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|St. Louis Post-Dispatch
|"for bold columns that exposed the malfeasance and injustice of forcing poor rural Missourians charged with misdemeanor crimes to pay unaffordable fines or be sent to jail."
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|The Atlantic
|"for luminous columns that expertly explore the intersection of gender and politics with a personal, yet keenly analytical, point of view."
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|The Kansas City Star
|"for examining, in spare and courageous writing, institutional sexism and misogyny within her hometown NFL team, her former governor's office and the Catholic Church."
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!rowspan=3 |2020
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|The New York Times
|"for a sweeping, deeply reported and personal essay for the ground-breaking 1619 Project, which seeks to place the enslavement of Africans at the center of America's story, prompting public conversation about the nation's founding and evolution."
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|The Atlantic
|"for an illuminating essay that explores the familiar threats of climate change through the lesser-known stories of Indigenous Pacific Island communities who are fighting rising seas with a resilience that is both heartbreaking and hopeful."
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|The Atlantic
|rowspan=2 |"for her insightful, often prescient, columns on the pandemic and American culture, published in The New York Times and The Atlantic, that brought clarity to the shifting official guidance and compelled us towards greater compassion and informed response."
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|The New York Times
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!rowspan=3 |2023
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|Alabama Media Group
|"for measured and persuasive columns that document how Alabama's Confederate heritage still colors the present with racism and exclusion, told through tours of its first capital, its mansions and monuments—and through the history that has been omitted."
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|The Atlantic
|"for thoughtful, versatile and entertaining columns that explore how gentrification and the predominant white culture in the U.S. stifle the physical and emotional expression of racial minorities."
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|The Washington Post
|"for columns that convey the anger and dread that many Americans felt about losing their right to abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
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!rowspan=3 |2024
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|The Washington Post
|"for passionate columns written under great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin's Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country."
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|The New Yorker
|"for original columns that force us to reexamine popular narratives and reframe such critical topics as affirmative action, racial politics and the portrayal of gun violence."
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|Alabama Reflector
|"for brave, clear and pointed columns that challenge ever-more-repressive state policies flouting democratic norms and targeting vulnerable populations, written with the command and authority of a veteran political observer."
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!rowspan=3 |2025
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|The New Yorker
|"for essays on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel."
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|Los Angeles Times
|"for vivid columns reported from across the Southwest that shattered stereotypes and probed complex shifts in politics in an election year when Latinos were pivotal voters."
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|The Washington Post
|"for his perceptive and informed use of sports to examine critical social divisions in America through difficult conversations about race, gender and media bias."
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