Ann Telnaes is a worthy recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for illustrated reporting and commentary; after all, she previously won in 2001, and she was a finalist in 2022. Her winning portfolio is trademark Telnaes, portraying Donald Trump as a dumpy, orange-faced gnome who somehow manages to be simultaneously menacing and pathetic.
At the same time, I think it’s unavoidable to conclude that the Pulitzer judges, in recognizing Telnaes, were sending a message to Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Telnaes quit in January after opinion editor David Shipley killed a cartoon that made fun of billionaires for sucking up to Donald Trump — including Bezos.
Shipley later followed Telnaes out the door after Bezos decreed that the Post’s opinion pages would henceforth be dedicated exclusively to “personal liberties and free markets.”
As Poynter media columnist Tom Jones observes, the Pulitzer board took note of Telnaes’ departure earlier this year by hailing her “fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years.”
Brilliant as Telnaes’ Pulitzer-winning portfolio may be, the two finalists are less traditional and, in some ways, more intriguing. One, “True Stories from an ICU,” produced by outside contributors Ernesto Barbieri and Jess Ruliffson, was published in The Boston Globe, and comprises graphic novel-style slices of life and death. The other, by a four-person term at inewsource.org in San Diego, similarly gives the graphic novel-style treatment to a story called “Fentanyl: A Decade of Death.”
Telnaes, in a statement reported by Jones, said:
In a time when the free press is under attack by autocrats in their quest to silence dissent, editorial cartoons and satire are essential for a democracy to survive and thrive. I’m honored to receive this award and encourage everyone to support their local cartoonist.
So congratulations to Telnaes, who is one of the great editorial cartoonists of our time. Despite quitting the Post, she’s still at it. You can follow her work at her newsletter, “Open Windows.”
Pulitzer notes
Although there were no Pulitzers won by New England news organizations, there were four finalists.
Three of them were for the Globe, including the aforementioned “True Stories from an ICU.”
The paper was also recognized in the public service category for its coverage — with contributions from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project — of the decline and fall of Steward Health Care, which the judges described as “sweeping coverage of the financial mismanagement of a major hospital chain, exposing how corporate malfeasance, personal greed and government neglect led to compromised care and deaths.”
Three Globe opinion journalists, David Scharfenberg, Alan Wirzbicki and Marcela García, were honored in the editorial writing category for “their politically courageous and deeply reported editorials on how Boston can humanely and effectively close underutilized schools in ways that improve student learning.”
“Frontline,” which is based at GBH in Boston, was recognized as a finalist in investigative reporting for a joint project with The Associated Press, in collaboration with the Howard Centers for Investigative Journalism, for “a three-year investigation involving dozens of reporters and the creation of a database to document more than 1,000 deaths around the country in which police officers subdued victims with methods intended to be non-lethal.”
Finally, it’s notable that the attempt to assassinate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania last July was the subject of two Pulitzers. The Washington Post won for breaking news reporting for three pieces it published the day of the near-assassination (including a video) as well as several follow-ups, and Doug Mills of The New York Times won for breaking news photography, a series of pictures that includes that now-iconic image of Trump waving his fist in the air with blood streaming down his face.
What was he thinking?
Ezra Klein is one of my favorite opinion journalists, but he’s giving us a bad name by blurring the line between liberal advocacy and partisan activism.
According to Hans Nichols of Axios, Klein, a columnist and podcaster with The New York Times, has been invited to speak to Senate Democrats at their annual issues retreat on Wednesday. David Schor, a Democratic data analyst who’s been on Klein’s show, will appear separately.
Opinion journalism is just as honorable a pursuit as straight news reporting, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the public to distinguish the real thing from party hacks who bloviate on cable news. Klein isn’t helping.
One of the four principles of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics is to “act independently.” The first two bullet points:
- “Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
- “Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and avoid political and other outside activities that may compromise integrity or impartiality, or may damage credibility.”
I’ll assume that Klein isn’t being paid, but this is certainly a conflict of interest as well as a political activity.
It will be interesting to see whether Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury puts a stop to this.
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So The Times got a Pulitzer for its photos of the alleged Trump assassination attempt. It certainly was a noteworthy action by their photog. But should they keep it, given the serious doubts now circulating whether Trump was actually injured or if he faked it to gain attention? Or should the Times use the moment to raise the question openly and begin a serious investigation? Seems to be a legitimate ethical dilemma here.
Conspiracy theory is going around but without much merit. There is no question there was a shooter and that person was shooting at Trump. There is a photo of a bullet whizzing past him and we know someone was shot and killed behind him. There is also a series of photos where Trump turns to look at the giant monitor behind him, then grabs his ear and in the next photo you can see blood on his hand, before anyone else comes to assist him. If anyone still thinks this was staged, they would have to believe that Trump had fake blood with him and was willing to take the risk of having someone shoot at him and miss.
Bill, Stephen is right. The only part of this that’s in dispute is whether Trump might have been hit by a flying glass shard rather than a bullet. Needless to say, Trump would prefer the more dramatic version, but either way he was the target of an assassination attempt.
I agree that Ezra Klein is one of the best opinion columnists/podcasters out there. I disagree that appearing at the Senate Democrats’ event — if uncompensated — is a journalistic conflict. Yes, it seems to contradict the SPJ code. But I’d argue the code itself is flawed. This is not taking the stage at a Trump rally. It is giving Democrats an opportunity to hear the kind of new ideas that they are sorely lacking.
Another worthy prize winner: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/may/05/palestinian-poet-mosab-abu-toha-pulitzer