Journalist Danish Siddiqui, Among Four Indians Honoured with Pulitzer Prize

Siddiqui and his colleagues Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo and Amit Dave from the Reuters news agency won the award, announced on Monday, for “images of Covid’s toll in India that balanced intimacy and devastation, while offering viewers a heightened sense of place,” according to The Pulitzer Prizes website.

Danish Siddiqui was the Chief Photographer for Reuters, based in India. He graduated with a degree in economics from Jamia Millia Islamia, where he would later pursue post-graduation studies in Mass Communication. He received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography, as part of a team of photographers, documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis. He was killed during the conflict between the Taliban and the Afghan army.

Full list of winners in journalism and descriptions of their awards are as follows:

Public Service
Winner: The Washington Post for its account of the assault on Washington on January 6, 2021.

Breaking News Reporting
Winner: The staff of the Miami Herald for its coverage of the collapse of the Seaside apartment towers in Florida.

Investigative Reporting
Winner: Corey G. Johnson, Rebecca Woolington and Eli Murray of the Tampa Bay Times for an exposé of highly toxic hazards inside Florida’s only battery recycling plant that forced the implementation of safety measures to adequately protect workers and nearby residents.

Explanatory Reporting
Winner: Staff of Quanta Magazine, notably Natalie Wolchover, for reporting on how the Webb Space Telescope works.

Local Reporting
Winner: Madison Hopkins of the Better Government Association and Cecilia Reyes of the Chicago Tribune for an examination of Chicago’s long history of failed building and fire safety code enforcement.

National Reporting
Winner: The staff of The New York Times for a project that quantified a disturbing pattern of fatal traffic stops by police.

International Reporting
Winner: The staff of The New York Times for reporting that exposed the vast civilian tolls of US-led airstrikes, challenging official accounts of American military engagements in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Feature Writing
Winner: Jennifer Senior of The Atlantic for a portrayal of a family’s reckoning of loss in the 20 years since 9/11.

Commentary
Winner: Melinda Henneberger of the Kansas City Star for persuasive columns demanding justice for alleged victims of a retired police detective accused of being a sexual predator.

Criticism
Winner: Salamishah Tillet, contributing critic at large for The New York Times, for writing about Black stories in art and popular culture.

Editorial Writing
Winner: Lisa Falkenberg, Michael Lindenberger, Joe Holley and Luis Carrasco of the Houston Chronicle for a campaign that, with original reporting, revealed voter suppression tactics, rejected the myth of widespread voter fraud and argued for sensible voting reforms.

Illustrated Reporting and Commentary
Winner: Fahmida Azim, Anthony Del Col, Josh Adams and Walt Hickey of Insider for a comic on an Uyghur internment camp.

Breaking News Photography
Winner: Marcus Yam of the Los Angeles Times for raw and urgent images of the US departure from Afghanistan.

Winner: Win McNamee, Drew Angerer, Spencer Platt, Samuel Corum and Jon Cherry of Getty Images for comprehensive and consistently riveting photos of the attack on the US capitol.

Feature Photography
Winner: Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, Amit Dave and the late Danish Siddiqui of Reuters for images of COVID’s toll in India.

Audio Reporting
Winner: Staffs of Futuro Media and PRX for “Suave” – an immersive profile of a man re-entering society after more than 30 years in prison.

While the list for Books, Drama and Music included:

Fiction
Winner: The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, by Joshua Cohen.

Drama
Winner: Fat Ham, by James Ijames

History
Winner: Covered with Night, by Nicole Eustace and Cuba: An American History, by Ada Ferrer

Biography
Winner: Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South, by the late Winfred Rembert as told to Erin I. Kelly

Poetry
Winner: frank: sonnets, by Diane Seuss

General Nonfiction
Winner: Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City, by Andrea Elliott

Music
Winner: Voiceless Mass, by Raven Chacon

The Pulitzer Prizes were established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the School of Journalism in 1912 and establish the Pulitzer Prizes, which were first awarded in 1917.