New York Times, New Yorker share Pulitzer Prize for Harvey Weinstein exposes

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com): The New York Times and the New Yorker have jointly won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for public service for their influential exposes of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

The explosive investigations into Weinstein’s abuses in the Times (reported by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey) and the New Yorker (by Ronan Farrow) were clearly the headline news stories of the last year, rocking the entertainment industry and spurring a global reckoning about the harassment and abuse of women. The shared prize was at the top of a list of 2018 Putlizer winners that also included awards for political coverage of Trump’s presidency as well as arts awards for musician Kendrick Lamar for his album “Damn.” and playwright Martyna Majok for her play “Cost of Living.” Among the political stories to score awards were the Times and the Washington Post’s coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign; the Arizona Republic and the USA Today Network’s look at the obstacles and potential fallout of Trump’s proposal to build a border wall between the US and Mexico; and the Washington Post’s reportage of the sexual harassment in Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s past.

Lamar’s win for his critically praised “Damn.” marked an unusually mainstream choice for the Pulitzer board, which tends to give the music award to contemporary classical or operatic work. Meanwhile, Majok, a fast-rising playwright whose work also includes “Queens,” took home the Pulitzer Prize for drama among a pool of finalists that also included Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Everybody” and Tracy Letts’ “The Minutes.” The fiction award went to Andrew Sean Greer’s “Less.”

The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes were announced in New York by journalist and awards administrator Dana Canedy.