The Pulitzer Prizes announced the winners for 2012.
Despite the intense and even disturbing images, the pictures and stories behind them are well worth knowing. Please don’t read on if you may find disturbing to see a photo of violence and death (unfortunately it is not the good landings that sell, just the plane crashes).
There are two photographic categories, Breaking News and Feature Photography.
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| Craig F. Walker |
Won by Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post, for his compassionatechronicle of an honorably discharged veteran, home from Iraq and struggling with a severe case of post-traumatic stress, images that enable viewers to better grasp a national issue.
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| Scott looks over his military service records and weeps after being told his apartment application had been turned down. The leasing manager said he couldn’t allow Scott to move in because of an assault charge on his background check. Though Scott had his honorable discharge papers and his good-conduct medal, Scott said they meant nothing. ‘I’m not a criminal. You would think this would be worth something. It should be. It’s not, though.’ (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post – December 29, 2011) |
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: David Guttenfelder, Ng Han Guan and Rafael Wober of the Associated Press for their extraordinary portrayal of daily life inside the reclusive nation of North Korea, including scenes after the death of Kim Jong Il; and Francine Orr of the Los Angeles Times for her poignant portrait of the suffering by desperate families and misunderstood children who live with autism.
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| Massoud Hossaini |
Massoud Hossaini of Agence France-Presse won with his heartbreaking image of a girl crying in fear after a suicide bomber’s attack at a crowded shrine in Kabul.
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| Tarana Akbari, 12, screams in fear moments after a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a crowd at the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul on December 06, 2011. ‘When I could stand up, I saw that everybody was around me on the ground, really bloody. I was really, really scared,’ said the Tarana, whose name means ‘melody’ in English. Out of 17 women and children from her family who went to a riverside shrine in Kabul that day to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashura, seven died including her seven-year-old brother Shoaib. More than 70 people lost their lives in all, and at least nine other members of Tarana’s family were wounded. The blasts has prompted fears that Afghanistan could see the sort of sectarian violence that has pitched Shiite against Sunni Muslims in Iraq and Pakistan. The attack was the deadliest strike on the capital in three years. President Hamid Karzai said this was the first time insurgents had struck on such an important religious day. The Taliban condemned the attack, which some official viewed as sectarian. On the same day, a second bomber attacked in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Karzai said on December 11 that a total of 80 people were killed in both attacks. Published December 7, 2011 |
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Carolyn Cole and Brian van der Brug of the Los Angeles Times for their illumination of epic disasters in Japan, documenting the brutality of nature as well as the durability of the human spirit; and John Moore, Peter Macdiarmid and the late Chris Hondros of Getty Images for their brave coverage of revolutionary protests known as the Arab Spring, capturing the chaos and exuberance as ordinary people glimpsed new possibilities.
