NEW YORK - The Washington Post and The Guardian won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for revealing the U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance efforts in a blockbuster series of stories based on secret documents handed over by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
The Pulitzer for breaking news was awarded to The Boston Globe for its “exhaustive and empathetic” coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the manhunt that followed.
The winning entries about the security agency’s spy programs revealed that the government has collected information about millions of Americans’ phone calls and emails to try to head off another 9/11-style terrorist attack.
The disclosures touched off a furious debate in the U.S. over privacy versus security and led President Barack Obama to impose limits on the surveillance.
Two of the nation’s most distinguished newspapers, The Post and The New York Times, won two Pulitzers each.
The Pulitzer for explanatory reporting went to The Post’s Eli Saslow for reporting on food stamps in America.
The New York Times won twice in photography: Tyler Hicks was honored in the breaking news category for documenting the Westgate mall terrorist attack in Kenya, and Josh Haner was cited for his essay on a Boston Marathon blast victim who lost his legs.
The National Security Agency stories were written by Barton Gellman at The Washington Post and Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill, whose work was published by The Guardian US, the British newspaper’s American operation, based in New York.
“I think this is amazing news,” Poitras said in New York. “It’s a testament to Snowden’s courage, a vindication of his courage and his desire to let the public know what the government is doing.”
Snowden, a former contract employee at the agency, has been charged with espionage and other offenses in the U.S. and could get 30 years in prison if convicted. He has received asylum in Russia.
While his critics have branded him a traitor, others have celebrated the release of the documents, comparing them to the Pentagon Papers, the secret Vietnam War history whose publication by The New York Times in 1971 won the newspaper a Pulitzer.
In a statement issued by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Snowden called the award vindication for “everyone who believes that the public has a role in government.”
He saluted “the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop.”
At The Boston Globe, the newsroom was closed off to outsiders, and staff members marked the announcement of the breaking-news award - coming just a day before the anniversary of the bombing - with a moment of silence for the victims.
The attack last April 15 killed three people and wounded more than 260 near the finish line of one of the world’s most celebrated races, transforming a celebratory event into a scene of horror and heroics.
American journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzers are given out each year by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of distinguished journalists and others.
The two winners of the public service award will receive gold medals. The other awards carry $10,000 prizes.
Annie Baker’s The Flick won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for drama, a play set in a rundown movie theater that was hailed by the judges as a “thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters” with “lives rarely seen on the stage.”
Baker, 33, beat out The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence, by Madeleine George, which also played Playwrights Horizons, and Fun Home, with a book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori, which played the Public Theater. Baker was traveling Monday and unreachable for comment about her win.
The drama award, which includes a $10,000 prize, is “for a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life,” according to the official guidelines.
The production must have opened during 2013 to be eligible for this year’s award. Previous playwrights honored include August Wilson, Edward Albee, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.
Information for this article was contributed by Verena Dobnik, Deepti Hajela, Steve LeBlanc, Eileen Sullivan, Tamara Lush, Nigel Duara and Mark Kennedy of The Associated Press.
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Front Section, Pages 2 on 04/15/2014