AP wins Pulitzer for slave-labor story; Miranda’s ‘Hamilton’ wins for drama

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for documenting the use of slave labor in Southeast Asia to supply seafood to American tables – an investigation that spurred the release of more than 2,000 captive workers.

The Los Angeles Times was awarded the breaking news prize for its coverage of the shooting rampage by husband-and-wife extremists that left 14 people dead in San Bernardino, Calif., and The Washington Post received the national reporting award for an examination of killings by police in the U.S.

Besides recognizing some of the biggest national and international stories of the year, the awards spotlighted deep dives into a chilling rape case, the long arc of school segregation, and the mistreatment of psychiatric patients. The New Yorker was honored in the criticism and feature writing categories, which only recently were opened to magazines.

The New York Times won for international reporting for detailing the plight of Afghan women, while the Times and Thomson Reuters both took the breaking news photography prize for images of refugees.

Among other winners in the journalism category were: Leonora LaPeter Anton and Anthony Cormier, of the Tampa Bay Times, and Michael Braga, of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, for a project on escalating violence and neglect in Florida mental hospitals; John Hackworth, of Sun Newspapers in Charlotte Harbor, Fla., for editorials on a deadly assault of an inmate by guards; and Jack Ohman, of The Sacramento Bee, for editorial cartooning.

The Broadway musical “Hamilton,” by Lin-Manuel Miranda, won the prize for drama, one of only a handful of musicals to have won the honor; and “The Sympathizer,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, won for fiction.