NEW YORK — The Associated Press won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for an investigation into mass surveillance tools and their impact in China, and Reuters won the award Monday for reporting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s use of executive power.
Spanning three years, thousands of pages of documents and numerous interviews, the AP project found that American companies help lay the foundations of the Chinese government’s system for monitoring and policing its citizens.
Other stories included a look at how across presidential administrations, Washington allowed tech companies and Beijing to skirt regulations intended to bar China from access to certain materials, such as advanced computer chips.
Reuters’ work looked at how Trump has used the federal government and his supporters’ influence to expand presidential authority and to try to punish his foes, the award judges noted.
It was one of two awards for Reuters. Its reporting on the social media giant Meta won a prize in the newly revived category for beat reporting.
The Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of last year’s mass shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school took the prize for breaking news.
Judges praised the “thoroughness and compassion” of the newspaper’s reporting on a scene of carnage in its hometown. Two children were killed and more than a dozen others were injured as shooter opened fire during the school’s first Mass of the academic year. The shooter later was found dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot.
Pulitzers come a week after an attack on press dinner
The Pulitzer announcement — conducted by livestream and usually followed by a dinner later in the year — came little more than a week after an armed man rushed a security checkpoint and exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents outside another big event for U.S. journalists, the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington. The man is now charged with trying to assassinate Trump, who was attending the event for his first time as president.
The Pulitzer journalism awards are for work done in 2025 by U.S. news sites, newspapers, magazines and wire services in text, photo, and audio. Video and graphics can be part of an entry package. Television and radio stations’ websites also are eligible, if their entries focus on written material.
Separately, Monday’s awards also honored books, music and theater.
The Pulitzer Prizes were established in newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer’s will and were first awarded in 1917. Winners receive $15,000, and the prestigious public service award earns a gold medal.
Decisions are made by the Pulitzer Board, based at Columbia University in New York. The Associated Press’ executive editor, Julie Pace, is among the board’s new members.