Pair
awarded highest accolade in US journalism, winning Pulitzer prize for public
service for stories on NSA surveillance
theguardian.com,
Ed Pilkington in New York, Monday 14 April 2014
 |
| The Guardian revealed the NSA's bulk collection of phone records 10 months ago based on Edward Snowden's leaks. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images |
The
Guardian and the Washington Post have been awarded the highest accolade in US
journalism, winning the Pulitzer prize for public service for their
groundbreaking articles on the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities based on the leaks of Edward Snowden.
The award,
announced in New York on Monday, comes 10 months after the Guardian published the first report based on the leaks from Snowden, revealing the agency’s bulk
collection of US citizens’ phone records.
In the
series of articles that ensued, teams of journalists at the Guardian and the
Washington Post published the most substantial disclosures of US government
secrets since the Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam war in 1971.
The
Pulitzer committee praised the Guardian for its "revelation of widespread
secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, helping through aggressive
reporting to spark a debate about the relationship between the government and
the public over issues of security and privacy".
Snowden, in
a statement, said: "Today's decision is a vindication for everyone who
believes that the public has a role in government. We owe it to the efforts of
the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face of
extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic
materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of
pressure to get them to stop what the world now recognises was work of vital
public importance."
He said
that his actions in leaking the documents that formed the basis of the
reporting "would have been meaningless without the dedication, passion,
and skill of these newspapers".
At the
Guardian, the reporting was led by Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and
film-maker Laura Poitras, and at the Washington Post by Barton Gellman, who
also co-operated with Poitras. All four journalists were honoured with a George Polk journalism award last week for their work on the NSA story.
 |
| Investigative reporter Laura Poitras accepts the George Polk Award alongside Barton Gellman, far left, and Ewen MacAskill. Photograph: Andrew Burton/ Getty Images |
The NSA
revelations have reverberated around the world and sparked a debate in the US
over the balance between national security and personal privacy. On the back of
the disclosures, President Obama ordered a White House review into data surveillance, a number of congressional reform bills have been introduced, and
protections have begun to be put in place to safeguard privacy for foreign
leaders and to increase scrutiny over the NSA’s mass data collection.
"We
are truly honoured that our journalism has been recognised with the Pulitzer
Prize," said Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian. "This
was a complex story, written, edited and produced by a team of wonderful
journalists. We are particularly grateful for our colleagues across the world
who supported the Guardian in circumstances which threatened to stifle our
reporting. And we share this honour, not only with our colleagues at the
Washington Post, but also with Edward Snowden, who risked so much in the cause
of the public service which has today been acknowledged by the award of this
prestigious prize."
Janine
Gibson, editor-in-chief of Guardian US, said: "We're extremely proud and
gratified to have been honoured by the Pulitzer board. It's been an intense,
exhaustive and sometimes chilling year working on this story and we're grateful
for the acknowledgement by our peers that the revelations made by Edward
Snowden and the work by the journalists involved represent a high achievement
in public service."
Among the
disclosures were:
• the
program codenamed Prism used by the NSA and its UK counterpart GCHQ to gain
back-door entry into the data of nine giant internet companies including Google
and Facebook
• the
cracking of internet encryption by the NSA and GCHQ that undermined personal
security for web users ;
The
coverage of the Snowden leaks presented a particularly thorny issue for the
19-strong panel of journalists, academics and writers who recommend the
winners. The stream of disclosures invoked strong and polarised reactions in
the US and around the world.
In January,
Obama said that the debate on the acceptable limits of government surveillance
prompted by the articles “will make us stronger”. But other prominent US
politicians such as Mike Rogers, Republican chairman of the House intelligence
committee, have suggested journalism based on Snowden’s leaks was tantamount to
dealing in stolen property.
Snowden has
been charged with three offences in the US. He is the eighth person to be
charged with breaking the 1917 Espionage Act by the Obama administration – more
than all the prosecutions brought under previous presidents combined.
The
Guardian's US operation, headquartered in New York, was incorporated as an
American company in 2011 and recognised last year by the Pulitzer board as a US
news outlet eligible to be considered for its prizes.
Last month
editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger was given a special award at the European press
awards; earlier this month the Guardian was named newspaper of the year in the
UK; and there it has been awarded other prizes for online and investigative
journalism in Germany, Spain and the US.
The Snowden
stories were edited from New York by Guardian US editor-in-chief Janine Gibson
and deputy editor Stuart Millar. The UK end of the reporting was led by deputy
editor Paul Johnson and investigations editor Nick Hopkins.
Others on
the team of journalists included Spencer Ackerman, James Ball, David Blishen,
Gabriel Dance, Julian Borger, Nick Davies, David Leigh and Dominic Rushe. In
Australia the editor was Katharine Viner and the reporter Lenore Taylor.
The
Pulitzers have been bestowed since 1917, at the bequest of the legendary
newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer who established the honour in his will as a
means of encouraging publicly-spirited journalism. The awards have shifted and
grown over the years to reflect the modern publishing landscape and today
stands at 22 categories, including 14 journalism awards and seven gongs for
books, drama and music. All the awards are administered by Columbia
University.
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