This year’s Pulitzer Prize winners are among the most talented and inspirational members of the journalism community, except if you’re an editorial cartoonist, apparently.

The Pulitzer Board announced the recipients of the 105th Pulitzer Prizes last Friday, June 11, honoring excellence in journalism. For the second year, the Pulitzer Prize winners were announced virtually, and the full announcement video can be found on the Pulitzer Prize’s YouTube.

Notable award winners include The Star Tribune staff for their urgent, nuanced coverage of the death of George Floyd and of the aftermath that followed, three authors at BuzzFeed News—Rajagopalan, Killing, and Buschek—who exposed and explained a vast new infrastructure built by the Chinese government for the mass detention of Muslims, and Darnella Frazier, an 18-year-old who proved the importance of citizen bystanders when she recorded the murder of George Floyd.

Below are the winners from each category. You can find the full list of finalists and the body of work the Pulitzer Board considered on the Pulitzer website.

Journalism:

Public Service: The New York Times
Breaking News Reporting: Staff of The Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minn.
Investigative Reporting: Matt Rocheleau, Vernal Coleman, Laura Crimaldi, Evan Allen and Brendan McCarthy of The Boston Globe
Explanatory Reporting: Andrew Chung, Lawrence Hurley, Andrea Januta, Jaimi Dowdell and Jackie Botts of Reuters and Ed Yong of The Atlantic
Local Reporting: Staffs of The Marshall Project; AL.com, Birmingham; IndyStar, Indianapolis; and the Invisible Institute, Chicago
International Reporting: Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing and Christo Buschek of BuzzFeed News
Feature Writing: Mitchell S. Jackson, freelance contributor of Runner’s World and Nadja Drost, freelance contributor of The California Sunday Magazine
Commentary: Michael Paul Williams of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch
Criticism: Wesley Morris of The New York Times
Editorial Writing: Robert Greene of the Los Angeles Times
Editorial Cartooning: No award given
Breaking News Photography: Photography Staff of Associated Press
Feature Photography: Emilio Morenatti of Associated Press
Audio Reporting: Lisa Hagen, Chris Haxel, Graham Smith and Robert Little of National Public Radio

Letters, Drama, and Music:

Fiction: The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich (Harper)
Drama: The Hot Wing King, by Katori Hall
History: Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, by Marcia Chatelain (Liveright/Norton)
Biography: The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by the late Les Payne and Tamara Payne (Liveright/Norton)
Poetry: Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz (Graywolf Press)
General Nonfiction: Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, by David Zucchino (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Music: Stride, by Tania León (Peermusic Classical)

Special Awards and Citations:

  • Darnella Frazier
    • For courageously recording the murder of George Floyd, a video that spurred protests against police brutality around the world, highlighting the crucial role of citizens in journalists’ quest for truth and justice.

Pulitzer Prize Screenshot via Pulitzer Livestream