In 1980, the Pulitzer Prize was given anonymously for the first and only time in the award’s history. The Spot News Photography winner had captured a controversial image of an Iranian firing squad executing 11 prisoners, but the photo was published without his name for his protection. In 2006, the photographer’s identity was revealed and Jahangir Razmi finally received recognition as a Pulitzer Prize winner.
In 1978, photographer Thomas J. Kelly III was the first journalist on the scene of a brutal and terrifying attack by a deranged man who fatally stabbed his entire family inside their East Coventry, Pa., home. His series of photos documenting the aftermath of the incident, which left the man’s wife and unborn son dead, earned the Pulitzer Prize for Spot Photography. Kelly discusses the situation and how difficult it was for the press who covered it.
On July 22, 1975, in Boston, a 19-year-old and her 2-year-old goddaughter were trapped in a burning building. A firefighter, Robert O’Neill, shielded them from the flames as a fire ladder inched closer. Then the fire escape collapsed. Although the woman died from her injuries, the infant survived. “Fire Escape Collapse” circulated around the world, leading to new fire escape legislation across the country and earning Stanley Forman the first of two Pulitzer Prizes for spot news photography....
Brian Lanker details the special bond he shares with his famous photo of childbirth, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, and discusses the stark contrast between his image and that year’s Spot News Photography winner of children being bombed in Vietnam.
In April 1969, racial tensions at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., came to a head on the premises of the student union building. Peaceful negotiations between administrators and students ended a 36-hour student takeover of Willard Straight Hall, but Steve Starr’s Pulitzer-winning photo of armed students leaving the building after the standoff brought national attention to the story, leading to campus reforms and legislative action.
On a sweltering summer day in Jacksonville, Florida, Electric Authority linemen were making repairs atop poles when a worker was hit with 4,160 volts of electricity. As he dangled from his safety belt, a fellow lineman breathed into him in an attempt to save his life. Photographer Rocco Morabito took pictures and prayed – and earned the Pulitzer Prize.
In 1951, the sight of an African-American player on an Oklahoma college football field was rare – and unwelcome. In a game at Oklahoma A&M University, Drake University’s Johnny Bright, one of the country’s best players, was repeatedly attacked on the field by his opponents and eventually had to be carried off with a broken jaw. The sequence of violent photos captured by Don Ultang and John Robinson caused a national outcry and earned the men a Pulitzer Prize.
One night in 1946, college student Arnold Hardy arrived home to hear firetrucks in the street at the Winecoff Hotel in Atlanta. He grabbed his camera and rushed to the scene, capturing the terrifying moment a woman, trying to escape the inferno, plummeted toward the street. She survived, and his photo garnered the Pulitzer Prize.
On June 8, 1972, AP Photographer Nick Ut was covering a battle in South Vietnam when napalm meant for enemy fighters fell instead on civilians. Ut captured harrowing scenes of women and children fleeing and won a Pulitzer Prize for a haunting frame of a naked 9-year-old who would come to be known as “Napalm Girl.”
Robin Hood served in Vietnam as an Army information officer and returned a photographer. At an Armed Forces Day parade in 1976, he caught sight of another veteran in the crowd whose sacrifice left him confined to a wheelchair. Hood captured the moment and earned the Pulitzer Prize.
During the Vietnam War, three photographers earned the Pulitzer Prize for now-iconic images of the war. In 1969 and 1973, the winning photos bluntly depicted the horrors of war; but the 1974 prize was awarded to Slava Veder, who captured the unbridled joy of a family welcoming home a soldier who had been a prisoner of war for six years in Vietnam.
AP photographer Eddie Adams captured this brutal moment in the Vietnam War – the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner by the chief of South Vietnam’s national police – and won a Pulitzer Prize. The anti-war movement adopted the image for their cause, but Adams, who kept in touch with the police chief after the war, said the photo wrongly stereotyped the man.
The Miami Herald’s Michel du Cille won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 1988 for his depiction of the decay and desperation of a housing project caught in the grip of crack cocaine.
New York Times photojournalists recount their experiences documenting the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 and share their thoughts about the photographs that shook the nation.
The latest episode of the Newseum Podcast features an interview with Charles Porter IV, an aspiring journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 1995 bombing of a federal building.
David C. Turnley discusses his Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs of political uprisings in Eastern Europe and China, especially those documenting the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Pulitzer Prize winners Ken Geiger and William Snyder chat about their vibrant photographs that captured the spirit of the Olympics for the readers of The Dallas Morning News .
Alan Diaz of The Associated Press shares the story behind his gripping photograph of federal agents seizing Elian Gonzalez that became a visual touchstone of the nationally publicized custody battle between the boy’s father in Cuba and relatives in Miami.
Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Stanley Forman talks about his striking photograph showing a protester using an American flag as a weapon in the midst of a Boston anti-busing protest in 1976.
Associated Press photojournalist Joe Rosenthal discusses his photograph of Marines planting the American flag in the midst of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
Associated Press photographer Jack R. Thornell discusses his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of the shooting of James Meredith on his 220-mile March Against Fear by a roadside rifleman.
Robert H. Jackson of the Dallas Times Herald discusses his now-iconic photograph of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964.
Pulitzer winners Carol Guzy, Michael Williamson and Lucian Perkins of The Washington Post discuss their intimate and poignant images depicting the plight of the Kosovo refugees.
Photographers Irwin Thompson, Smiley Pool and Michael Ainsworth discuss their Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina for The Dallas Morning News .
Pulitzer Prize winner Damon Winter of The New York Times discusses his memorable array of photographs that capture multiple facets of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
During the Newseum’s 16th annual “Yes, Virginia” celebration, 8-year-old Mehren O’Hanlon read her great-great grandmother, Virginia O’Hanlon’s, famous 1897 letter to the New York Sun that inspired history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial. Afterward, in a special guest appearance, Macy’s One-and-Only Santa Claus read “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Frank and Sonya explore a day in the life of Executive Chef Tom Blundell, who oversees Wolfgang Puck Catering and the Food Section at the Newseum.
Frank and Sonya explore the newest Newseum exhibit, which opens Friday, Sept. 26, 2014.
Frank and Sonya chat with Patty Rhule, senior manager for exhibit development, about the beloved exhibit that showcases American presidents and their pets.
Frank and Sonya chat with Newseum Institute Chief Operating Officer Gene Policinski about the Institute’s initiatives that educate and engage the public on a variety of First Amendment issues.
