Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Andre Lambertson’s work is so full of humanity, it is no surprise that we collaborated often with him over the years. This Liberia project was distributed by a wide range of outlets and marked the first of many partnerships with PBS show Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria. Publication in multiple outlets remains an important strategy, to make sure the images reach as wide an audience as possible.

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THE BIGGER PICTURE

In March 2008, the Pulitzer Center partnered with Helium to launch its first round of the Global Issues/Citizen Voices Contest. Over seven hundred essays were received, and thirteen contest winners were selected. Contestants chose from multiple questions relating to different Pulitzer Center reporting projects.

What responsibility does the world bear for rehabilitating child soldiers from the horror of serving in armed conflict?

ESSAY BY Rachel Hanlon

"Now picture your child, being forced from the building, militant warlords with guns pointed at them, rounding up the youngsters so they can go and fight, rape and pillage..."

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Joshua Cogan’s photography was a key element of Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica, a collaboration with poet and author Kwame Dawes. Our most ambitious and creative project at the time, it resulted in an Emmy Award-winning website that used Kwame’s poetry as a throughline. The work also became a multimedia performance at the National Black Theatre Festival.

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THE BIGGER PICTURE

"I think of the simple equations
of compassion; I think of songs,
the accordion, the strained
harmonies, the bodies of the dying shuffling past, eyes still hoping; the van waiting in the shade to take me from all of this;
the long ride through rain and dark to Kingston, to sleep and more sleep."

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Sean Gallagher’s desertification in China project is a great example of illuminating an environment at risk through rich visual storytelling that is both alarming and inviting. The work reached outlets in China, the UK, and the U.S., including National Geographic, highlighting an issue that was not yet getting the attention it deserved.

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Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

There were more than 2,100 civilian casualties across Afghanistan in 2008. U.S. airstrikes accounted for 552. Jason Motlagh’s reporting explored the long-term effects of these traumas on Afghan communities through the personal stories of the individuals impacted. By returning to the scenes years later, the project illustrated the costs when bystanders become war victims.

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Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Cedric Gerbehaye collaborated with journalist and human rights lawyer Rebecca Hamilton in the lead up to the 2011 South Sudan vote for independence. Their reporting, featured across dozens of outlets, illuminated what would continue to be points of tension and conflict in the years to follow. Cedric says he sought “to look at a situation without false sentimentalism and to facilitate a greater understanding.”

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“I became interested in the country last year after reading an NGO report which said that South Sudan might be 'one of the biggest emergencies in Africa in 2010.'

The report indicated that the international community had abandoned a country where women and children were frequently targeted and where the peace-keeping forces were powerless. The increase of violence, as well as the lack of security and of development, threatened to plunge the southern part of the country into great instability on the eve of the referendum.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Allison Shelley and journalist Allyn Gaestel brought this often taboo topic to an impressive range of audiences including The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and The Atlantic. Women’s health and rights have always been a focus for the Center. As part of our many collaborations, Allison has brought her striking and sensitive photography to classrooms, helping students gain perspective on issues impacting women.

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“When I first heard about the practice of chaupadi thirteen years ago from a public health researcher who had witnessed it firsthand, the internet had very little to offer on the topic. It was simply not in the public eye outside of Nepal.

But since the publication of this Pulitzer-backed project there has been an explosion of reporting on the topic, including an NIH-archived study that focuses on the district that we targeted in our work.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Moving beyond the grizzly numbers of deaths and acts of violence, Dominic Bracco II’s reporting from Honduras provides an intimate glimpse into the lives of Hondurans: couples, teenagers, mothers, friends, or a pastor and their congregation. Dominic has a unique connection that makes the title of the project Aqui Vivimos (We Live Here) feel universal.

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“I remember spending most of the day with assassinated community organizer Darwin Franco’s family and friends in Correderos, Honduras. What was clear was that he was well-loved. People came from afar by car, and others walked to pay tribute. There was immense pain, but also joy for his life, and the strength he represented was palpable.

I made this image of his brother laying his head on the pastor’s shoulder in grief, seeing the profound comfort that singing brought him. It was deeply moving.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Using a camera attached to a small drone, Tomas van Houtryve travelled across the U.S. photographing the kinds of gatherings that became targets for foreign air strikes—weddings, funerals, groups of people praying or exercising. As James Estrin of The New York Times said: “It tackles issues that are very difficult to photograph but central to modern existence – privacy, government intrusion and modern antiseptic warfare.”

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“"A drone seems particularly appropriate because it's increasingly how America views the rest of the world," Tomas tells Time. "I wanted to turn things around. What do we look like from a drone's-eye view? Suspicious? Prosperous? Free and happy?”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Daniella Zalcman was reporting from Canada on a story about HIV rates in First Nations when she connected with an even more important, still largely untold, story: the forced assimilation of Indigenous children at residential schools. The reporting grew into a global exploration that was featured in dozens of outlets, exhibits, and a book. Her visual translation weaves history, memory, and dignity through the voices of the individuals she interviewed and photographed.

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“These multiple exposure portraits overlay images of survivors with the sites and memories of their boarding school experiences, as an attempt to visually engage with the impacts of cultural genocide and intergenerational trauma.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Fractured Lands was our first collaboration with The New York Times Magazine to result in a full issue feature. Paolo Pellegrin’s iconic images from over the years of conflict in the Middle East were accompanied by Scott Anderson’s richly reported narratives. The collaboration fueled powerful public events and wonderfully creative educational programs.

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Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Jake Naughton, a former Pulitzer Center employee, tackled a highly political issue by presenting the stories, the faces, and emotions, of the LGBTQ+ community in Uganda. Jake’s images tell a universal story about love and respect. In possibly our most diverse distribution, the work was featured in National Geographic, them., and Playboy.

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“Perhaps when I'm older, I can have a platform of my own, use it to tell others to be part of the solution. The only thing that I want is to see change. For love and acceptance to be the norm, and for people to not live in fear, hiding who they are. Today is not the day that I can make a change on my own, so I ask of you to help not only me, but queer folk across the country and around the world. My only wish is to see the day that acceptance becomes worldwide.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Xyza Cruz Bacani is a Filipina photographer based in Hong Kong, where she once worked as a second-generation migrant domestic worker. Her larger project Climate Change and Human Trafficking in Indonesia is part of Pulitzer Center’s focus on the intersection of climate change and labor, which has received little attention despite its impact on gender, migration, and human rights. Xyza’s images for the project were featured in publications in China, the Phillipines, and the United States.

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“The forces driving environmental destruction, like large-scale palm oil production, deforestation, and coal use, continue to expand. What makes this especially urgent is that the very communities that have long acted as stewards of the land, the Indigenous groups, are being displaced. Their traditional knowledge systems, which could serve as a frontline defense against environmental collapse, are undermined by capitalism and human greed.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Supported by the Center’s Rainforest Journalism Fund, which launched in 2018, this project brought urgent global attention to the surge of wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon, highlighting the broader environmental and governance crisis. Marcio Pimenta’s striking aerial images and on-the-ground reporting, published in English and Portuguese in El Pais and National Geographic, revealed the scale of destruction and the forces driving it.

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"The story remains relevant because it does not belong to a single moment. It reveals a recurring pattern in the way we occupy and transform the land. Fire, in this context, is not just an event—it is the expression of processes that repeat over time, across different contexts and generations.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Maye-E Wong’s photography paints a different picture of the world than what most Americans were experiencing in 2020. She was part of The Associated Press team on the series Looking for America, which brought readers into the heart of local communities to try and understand the forces and frustrations that surfaced amid the COVID-19 pandemic, raging unemployment, protests, racial reckoning, and a turbulent election.

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Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

For four months, Enayat Asadi lived with the Bakhtiari nomadic tribes, who have roamed for thousands of years in the Zagros Mountains of southwestern Iran. The photo essay, published in NPR, offers a different view of Iran than is often shown in Western media, part of a larger commitment from the Center to challenge stereotypes, understand history, and share people’s everyday stories.

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“Many young women expressed a desire to leave nomadic life in search of education, stability, and basic infrastructure in urban areas, yet structural and cultural constraints often limit their ability to make such choices freely. The impact of this story lies in the tension between continuity and change. Environmental degradation, resource scarcity, and shifting social expectations are reshaping lives in profound ways.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Economist and photojournalist Irina Werning documented the absurdity of rising prices in Argentina through humor, abstract representations, and nudity in her creative body of work, Inflation!—showing that inflation is more than just a business buzzword, but affects everyone, from the makeup store clerk to the woman walking dogs down the street.

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“The impact of the story was to make inflation understandable on a human level. Instead of treating inflation as an abstract economic concept, the project showed how it changes everyday life: how people shop, save, move through the city, negotiate salaries, and constantly adapt to uncertainty.

By using visual metaphors, humor, and documentary observation, the work made a complex issue accessible to broad audiences.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Ángela Ponce’s project Guardians of the Glaciers portrays the effects of the rapidly melting Ice Cap on communities around Cusco, Peru. As with many of the environmental projects the Pulitzer Center supports, this work centers the stories of the Indigenous communities most impacted, and highlights their role protecting these fragile ecosystems through ancestral knowledge—also at risk of disappearing.

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“Guardianes de los Glaciares es una historia que habla sobre cómo las comunidades andinas hacen frente al cambio climático a través de conocimientos ancestrales. Es importante visibilizar los esfuerzos desde sectores no científicos por preservar el ambiente, ya que el retroceso del nevado no solo pone en peligro los ecosistemas sino también los seres que dependen de este.”

“Guardians of the Glaciers is a story about how Andean communities are tackling climate change through ancestral knowledge. It is important to highlight the efforts made by non-scientific sectors to preserve the environment, as the retreat of the glacier not only endangers ecosystems but also the people who depend on them.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

While a student at Guttman College, Reporting Fellow Marcos Quinones documented New York City campus protests against the Israel-Gaza War. “Over the last year, I’ve become all too familiar with the sound a body makes as it's thrown onto concrete—the hollow thud, the skid of shoes as they scrape against the ground in search of balance, and the voices of press members screaming “press” as they’re assaulted for doing their jobs.”

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“As I watched countless journalists who look exactly like me die under the rubble of bombed buildings or by direct sniper fire through videos posted to social media, it was easy to develop a fatalistic mentality.

If it weren’t for my support system, past experiences documenting political unrest, and the continuous support of the Pulitzer Center, I likely would have given up on this story and my journalism career. What is happening at the Pulitzer Center is nothing short of revolutionary in this space.”

Behind the Lens:
THE PULITZER CONNECTION

Longtime Pulitzer Center grantee Natalie Keyssar worked with Ukrainian students like Anna Donets to tell stories of what it is like growing up during wartime for Rolling Stone. "Working with these Ukrainian teenagers was a humbling lesson in their resilience and the profoundly unjust reality of what surviving this kind of brutality long term is doing to an entire generation,” says Natalie.

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“Working with these Ukrainian teenagers was a humbling lesson in their resilience and the profoundly unjust reality of what surviving this kind of brutality long term is doing to an entire generation. But I was constantly inspired by the Ukrainian’s youth’s strength, determination not only to survive but to thrive, and commitment to helping each other and their communities.”

“This is the reality of life here—we live in constant contrast, and it is evident in every aspect of our daily lives. While working on this series, I experienced the same emotional contrasts, from tears to laughter. In fact, I never planned for these images to become a single series; I was simply documenting everything around me, collecting moments of life during the war in Ukraine.”