Freelance photojournalist wins Pulitzer for images on killings in Philippines

Campaign reporting that exposed misleading claims by now US President Donald Trump about charitable giving and commentary about last year's divisive US presidential campaign won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday.

David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post won the national reporting award for what the board called "a model for transparent journalism" that cast doubt on Trump's assertions of charitable generosity.

Fahrenthold investigated not only Trump's claims of charitable giving but also disclosed that the Republican presidential candidate had boasted in crude terms of groping about women on tape in 2005.

The Pulitzer Prize for commentary went to Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal for what the board called "beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation's most divisive political campaigns."

The coveted Public Service medal went to tabloid the New York Daily News and ProPublica for uncovering widespread abuse of eviction rules by the police to oust hundreds of people, most of them poor minorities.

The New York Times won the international reporting award for coverage of Vladimir Putin's efforts to project Russian power abroad, including assassinations online harassment and framing opponents.

The New York Times' C.J. Chivers also won the feature writing award for showing a Marine's postwar descent into violence.

Freelance photographer Daniel Berehulak won the Pulitzer for breaking news photography for images published in The New York Times showing killings amid the Philippines' war on drugs.

The Chicago Tribune on the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for portraying a 10-year-old boy and his mother striving to put the boy's life back together after he survived a shooting in Chicago.

The East Bay Times of Oakland, California won the breaking news category for covering a warehouse party fire that killed 36 people and exposing city failures to take action that might have prevented it.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

PH drug war makes it to TIME Magazine's top 10 photos of 2016

MANILA – A photo of a child crying over the casket of her father, allegedly the victim of a drug-related killing, was among TIME Magazine’s top 10 photos of 2016, cementing the Philippines’ war on drugs as among the world’s most "striking and lasting" topics, for the public and media alike.

The image shot by New York Times photographer Daniel Berehulak captured the anguish on the face of Jimji, 6, as she cried out for her father during his funeral in October this year.

Berehulak was in the Philippines to photograph President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign. He went to the wake of supposed drug dealer Jimboy Bolasa, whose body was found under a bridge in Navotas City in September, along with the corpse of another man.

 According to reports by two broadsheet newspapers, the police had yet to determine the identity of the killer, and his motive.

However, regardless of the police’s investigation, what mattered to Bolasa’s family was that he was gone—a grief that was demonstrated by his child, who Berehulak said “kept on screaming until she was overcome, fatigued” during his journey to the church for funeral rites.

Berehulak confessed to struggling to get through a sequence of similar photos that he took, because of the sense of loss he got from Bolasa’s family, as well as the helplessness of similar victims.

“It’s absolutely crippling to see that image and to see that little girl experiencing so much pain and loss; to know that her father was never given a trial, never had the opportunity to defend himself in front of a court,” Berehulak wrote.

There were 2,755 drug-related fatalities in the Philippines from May 10-December 20, according to data from the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group. These included those killed by unidentified assailants and police operations, as well as bodies found away from a crime scene.

Other photos that made it to TIME’s list were of Ieshia Evans’ arrest during a protest for the shooting of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police, a coup de etat in Turkey, citizens affected by government airstrikes in Syria, a photo of Air Force One arriving in Cuba, a rescue in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya, refugees at a camp in Greece, US president-elect Donald Trump delivering a speech while perched on a chair, "world’s fastest man" Usain Bolt at the Olympics, and a view of a snowstorm over the US East Coast from the International Space Station.

source: news.abs-cbn.com