Washington Post wins Pulitzer for Public Service

The Washington Post received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service May 9 for its “compellingly told and vividly presented account of the assault on Washington on January 6, 2021, providing the public with a thorough and unflinching understanding of one of the nation’s darkest days.“

The winning submission included “The Attack,” about what happened before, during and after that day.

Graduate students working in the Post practicum under John Sullivan — a reporter at the Post and editor at IRW — received contributing reporting credit in the series, and played a key role in the overall coverage of the attack. For more than a year, students also have populated and maintained a database tracking all the Capitol rioters and their legal cases. A shout-out to American University grad students McKenzie Beard, Caroline Cliona Boyle, Heather MacNeil, Aneeta Mathur-Ashton, Vanessa Montalbano, Megan Ruggles, Nick Trombola and Carley Welch.

And congratulations also to Sammy Sussman, a recent graduate of the University of Michigan and former IRW intern, who also contributed to the series.

This post has been updated to clarify that the Post won for its complete coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection.