NEW YORK -- The New York Times and The New Yorker won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for breaking the Harvey Weinstein scandal with reporting that galvanized the #MeToo movement and set off a worldwide reckoning over sexual misconduct in the workplace.
The Times and The Washington Post took the award in the national reporting category for their coverage of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and contacts between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russian officials.
The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, Calif., received the breaking news reporting award for coverage of the wildfires that swept through California wine country last fall, killing 44 people and destroying thousands of homes.
The Washington Post also won the investigative reporting prize for revealing decades-old allegations of sexual misconduct against Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama -- a series of articles that also included the revelation of how staff members uncovered an attempt by Project Veritas to discredit the newspaper's reporting on the Senate race.
One of the biggest surprises of the day came in the non-journalism categories when rap star Kendrick Lamar was awarded the Pulitzer for music, becoming the first non-classical or non-jazz artist to win the prize.
In announcing American journalism's most prestigious awards, Pulitzer administrator Dana Canedy said the winners "uphold the highest purpose of a free and independent press, even in the most trying of times."
"Their work is real news of the highest order, executed nobly, as journalism was always intended, without fear or favor," she said.
In other categories, the Arizona Republic and USA Today Network won the explanatory reporting prize for a multi-format look at the challenges and consequences of building the Mexican border wall that was a centerpiece of Trump's campaign.
The local reporting award went to The Cincinnati Enquirer for what the judges called "a riveting and insightful" narrative and video about the heroin epidemic in the area.
Clare Baldwin, Andrew R.C. Marshall and Manuel Mogato of Reuters won the international reporting award for their coverage of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly crackdown on drugs, and the news agency's photographers received the feature photography prize for their images of the plight of Rohingya refugees who have fled Burma.
The breaking news photography award went to Ryan Kelly of The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Va., who captured the moment a car plowed into counterprotesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in the college town. The car killed counterprotester Heather Heyer.
Kelly took the photo on his last day at the newspaper before moving on to a job at a brewery.
The Pulitzers were announced at Columbia University, which administers the prizes. This is the 102nd year of the contest, established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer.
Winners of the public service award receive a gold medal; the other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.
Information for this article was contributed by Justin Lynch, Colleen Long and Ben Finley of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/17/2018