REUTERS, the London-based news agency, won an unprecedented two Pulitzer prizes for its work in Southeast Asia.
A Filipino journalist was among those who won this year’s prestigious Pulitzer Prize for “relentless reporting” on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drugs war.
Manuel “Manny” Mogato, colleagues Clare Baldwin and Andrew R.C. Marshall from international news agency Reuters were cited for their “relentless reporting that exposed the brutal killing campaign behind Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.”
“It was a team effort. Every one in the Manila bureau did their job but it was months of hardwork and I admired the courage, strength, and perseverance of the team to pursue the drugs war story,” said Mogato, who has been Reuters' political and general news correspondent in Manila for 15 years.
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Manuel Mogato, Reuters' Manila correspondent, won part of a team honored by winning this year's Pulitzer. |
Winning a Pulitzer Prize, a recognition for outstanding work, is journalism's highest honor.
“In a year in which many Pulitzers were rightly devoted to U.S. domestic matters, we’re proud at Reuters to shine a light on global issues of profound concern and importance,” Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler said in an address to the Reuters' newsroom in London.
In the Philippines coverage, the Reuters team “demonstrated how police in the president’s ‘drug war’ have killed with impunity and consistently been shielded from prosecution,” Adler said.
The coverage included a report that revealed how a police anti-drug squad on the outskirts of Manila had recorded an unusually high number of killings. Many members of the squad came from a distant place that was also Duterte’s hometown, where the campaign’s brutal methods originated during his time as mayor there.
They identified not just new patterns in the killings, but also the top killers, corroborating their findings with months of risky reporting in slums and hostile police stations. The series explored how Philippine police use hospitals to cover up drug-war executions; how a group of police officers from Duterte’s hometown Davao formed the core of a lethal anti-drug unit; and how Duterte targets Philippine children in a bid to widen the drug war.
The Pulitzer committee recognized the team for their “relentless reporting that exposed the brutal killing campaign behind Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.”
Mogato, a veteran Filipino journalist who previously worked for the Manila Chronicle before joining Reuters, is the second Philippines-based journalist to win the prestigious journalism award, after Carlos P. Romulo became the first non-American to be given the Pulitzer Prize in Correspondence in 1942.
Mogato, a veteran Filipino journalist who previously worked for the Manila Chronicle before joining Reuters, is the second Philippines-based journalist to win the prestigious journalism award, after Carlos P. Romulo became the first non-American to be given the Pulitzer Prize in Correspondence in 1942.
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Reuters photographers Adnan Abidi, Mohammad Ponir Hossain, Hannah McKay, Cathal McNaughton, Damir Sagolj, Danish Siddiqui and Soe Zeya Tun were recognized in the category of Feature Photography for their coverage of the mass exodus of the Rohingya people to Bangladesh.
The Rohingyas’ migration from Myanmar is grueling and deadly. Hundreds of thousands of people, wet, caked in mud, exhausted, starving or sick, arrive in a state of panic and need the last of their energy. To document it was a severe challenge to Reuters journalists. To see a gallery of their photos, click here.
The Pulitzer judges honored the team “for shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar.”
As Reuters garners international praise for its reporting, the news agency has hired human rights attorney Amal Clooney, wife of the actor, to represent them in gaining the release of two its reporters who have been under arrest by Myanmar authorities since Dec. 12, 2017.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have have told relatives they were arrested almost immediately after being handed some rolled up papers at a restaurant in northern Yangon by two policemen they had not met before, having been invited to meet the officers for dinner.
The Pulitzer judges honored the team “for shocking photographs that exposed the world to the violence Rohingya refugees faced in fleeing Myanmar.”
As Reuters garners international praise for its reporting, the news agency has hired human rights attorney Amal Clooney, wife of the actor, to represent them in gaining the release of two its reporters who have been under arrest by Myanmar authorities since Dec. 12, 2017.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have have told relatives they were arrested almost immediately after being handed some rolled up papers at a restaurant in northern Yangon by two policemen they had not met before, having been invited to meet the officers for dinner.
A request to dismiss the case for lack of evidence was denied last week.
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