Pulitzer spotlights students reporting on Palestinian solidarity protests

The “extraordinary” work and dedication of student journalists covering the US campus protests have come for special praise from the Pulitzer Prize Board, the body which gives away the world’s most prestigious journalism awards.

The mention of the student journalists comes amid the growing campus protests against Israel’s bloody and brutal war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 35,000 people—most of them women and children.

“...The Pulitzer Prize Board would like to recognise the tireless efforts of student journalists across our nation’s college campuses, who are covering protests and unrest in the face of great personal and academic risk,” the board said in a statement.

The statement came ahead of the highly-anticipated announcement of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners on May 6.

“We would also like to acknowledge the extraordinary real-time reporting of student journalists at Columbia University, where the Pulitzer Prizes are housed, as the New York Police Department was called onto campus on Tuesday night,” it said.

“In the spirit of press freedom, these students worked to document a major national news event under difficult and dangerous circumstances and at risk of arrest.”

The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded by Columbia University on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

The Palestinian solidarity protests, which began with Columbia University students demanding divestment from all companies linked to Israel, have now spread across the world, reaching as far as Australia and Mexico.

Student journalists, like those reporting for the Columbia Daily Spectator, the New York Ivy League’s student newspaper, have been tirelessly covering the protests since they began in late April.

Columbia University president Minoche Shafik, who is facing calls for resignation after calling in police to sweep the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and her subsequent handling of student protests on campus, is also part of the Pulitzer board.

“There is more to say, but for now let me tell you how proud I am of our @columbiajourn students, whom I've watched report non-stop for days, sleep on floors, support one another & give their all to bearing witness under dire conditions,” said Azmat Khan, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and Birch Professor at Columbia Journalism School, where she also leads the Li Center for Global Journalism.

“We are indebted to student journalists, and as I have said again and again, to the unprecedented number of journalists who have been killed covering this war that reverberates around the world,” Khan added.

The Pulitzer Prizes were established in 1917 by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher who in his will, left money to Columbia University.

A portion of this money was used to establish Columbia’s School of Journalism in 1912, to be "applied to prizes or scholarships for the encouragement of public service, public morals, American literature, and the advancement of education,” in addition to the Pulitzer Prizes.

According to Columbia, in doing so, Pulitzer stated: "I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequalled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people.

“I desire to assist in attracting to this profession young men of character and ability, also to help those already engaged in the profession to acquire the highest moral and intellectual training."