The journalists whose investigations ignited the #MeToo movement — shaking workplaces and entire industries around the U.S. over the last year and heralding a new era in gender politics — received top honors at Monday's announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes.
Writers at The New York Times and New Yorker magazine shared the prestigious prize for public service for publishing bombshell investigations revealing mistreatment of women by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men.
In the investigative reporting category, The Washington Post won for uncovering allegations that Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually mistreated teenage girls decades ago. The reporting, published during the campaign, was a decisive factor in Moore losing the once-safe Republican seat to a Democrat.
The winners of the Pulitzer Prizes — print journalism's highest honors — were announced at Columbia University in New York.
The awards come at a time when journalists' work have been under siege by an array of forces: social media platforms that draw away readers and help promulgate hoaxes; declining advertising revenues and private equity owners that slash reporting jobs; and a White House whose relationship with the press can be described only as adversarial.
In the national reporting category, The New York Times and The Washington Post shared an award for their dogged reporting into the connections between Russia and President Donald Trump, with the publications one-upping each other with scoop after scoop — a newspaper war for the 21st century.
The Arizona Republic and the USA Today Network won the prize for explanatory reporting for scrutinizing the complications in Trump's plans for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and the Cincinnati Enquirer won the local reporting prize for its coverage of the heroin epidemic.
For the third year in a row, a California newspaper collected the prize for breaking news as the Santa Rosa Press Democrat won for its coverage of last year's devastating wildfires in Sonoma County.
Last year, the East Bay Times won the award for its coverage of the deadly Ghost Ship fire at an Oakland warehouse. The Los Angeles Times won in 2016 for its coverage of the San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting.
The award in the commentary category was given to John Archibald of the Alabama Media Group.
Andie Dominick of the Des Moines Register won the award for editorial writing for commentary on Iowa's privatization of Medicaid, and New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz won the award for criticism.
Reuters collected the award for international reporting for its coverage of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly war on drugs. The wire service also collected the award for feature photography for its work documenting the plight of Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar.
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah won the feature writing award for a GQ magazine profile of Charleston, S.C., gunman and white nationalist Dylann Roof. Ryan Kelly of the Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va., won the breaking news photography award for a harrowing shot of a car driving into a crowd of anti-racism protesters during a white nationalist rally in that city last year.
In the editorial cartooning category, Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan won for a series about refugees in The New York Times.
Here's the full list of winners:
Journalism
Public service
The New York Times and the New Yorker
Breaking news reporting
Staff of the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press-Democrat
Investigative reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
Explanatory reporting
Staffs of the Arizona Republic and USA Today Network
Local reporting
Staff of the Cincinnati Enquirer
National reporting
Staffs of the New York Times and The Washington Post
International reporting
Clare Baldwin, Andrew R.C. Marshall and Manuel Mogato of Reuters
Feature writing
Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, freelance reporter for GQ
Commentary
John Archibald of Alabama Media Group (Birmingham, Ala.)
Criticism
Jerry Saltz of New York magazine
Editorial writing
Andie Dominick of the Des Moines Register
Editorial cartooning
Jake Halpern, freelance writer, and Michael Sloan, freelance cartoonist, for the New York Times
Breaking news photography
Ryan Kelly of the Charlottesville Daily Progress
Feature photography
Photography staff of Reuters
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Books, Drama and Music
Fiction
"Less," by Andrew Sean Greer
Drama
"Cost of Living," by Martyna Majok
History
"The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea," by Jack E. Davis
Biography or autobiography
"Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder," by Caroline Fraser
Poetry
"Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016," by Frank Bidart
General nonfiction
"Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America," by James Forman Jr.
Music
"DAMN.," by Kendrick Lamar