Medar de la Cruz has won this year’s Pulitzer Prize in the Illustrated Reporting and Commentary category. The Brooklyn-based illustrator won for the illustrated story “The Diary of a Rikers Island Library Worker,” which appeared in the New Yorker last May. De la Cruz is an artist who also works in New York City jails as a library assistant for the Brooklyn Public Library. Phones and cameras aren’t allowed inside Rikers Island, so his drawings are based on his memories of the prison.
The other finalists in the category this year included Claire Healy, Nicole Dungca and Ren Galeno for “Searching for Maura,” which appeared in the Washington Post; “Is My Toddler A Stochastic Parrot?” by Angie Wang, which appeared in the New Yorker; and Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, for a “portfolio of deceptively gentle, mostly wordless cartoons full of juxtapositions that ably communicate complex, sophisticated messages.” You can see some of them here. Bennett also recently received a National Headliner Award, which recognizes journalism in a multitude of categories, in the Editorial Cartoon category.
This is the third year now where the Pulitzers have given awards in the Illustrated Reporting and Commentary category. It replaced the Editorial Cartoons category in 2022.
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