Skip to main content
For a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Photography Staff of Reuters

For a vivid and startling visual narrative of the urgency, desperation and sadness of migrants as they journeyed to the U.S. from Central and South America.

Staff members from Reuters (from left: Adrees Latif, Loren Elliott, Carlos Barria, Edgard Garrido, Lucy Nicholson, Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Ueslei Marcelino, Alkis Konstantinidis, Claudia Daut, Kim Kyung Hoon, Corinne Perkins and Mike Blake) accept the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography from Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy. (Eileen Barroso/Columbia University)

Winning Work

A rooster walks past the dead body of an Barrio-18 gang member in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. (September 28, 2018/Goran Tomasevic)

A migrant girl traveling with a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the U.S. holds her belongings while making her way to Mapastepec from Huixtla, Mexico at sunrise on October 24, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
A migrant caravan from Central America proceeds towards Tapachula from Ciudad Hidalgo, after crossing the Guatemala border into Mexico, while en route to the United States on October 21, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
A Honduran migrant protects his child after fellow migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the U.S., stormed a border checkpoint at the Guatemala - Mexico border, in Ciudad Hidalgo on October 19, 2018. (Ueslei Marcelino)
A migrant boy, part of a caravan from Central America trying to reach the U.S., cries due to excess heat and humidity as migrants seek asylum at the Guatemala Mexico border checkpoint in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, on October 20, 2018. (Edgard Garrido)
Luis Acosta, helps carry 5-year-old Angel Jesus, both from Honduras, as a caravan of migrants from Central America en route to the United States crossed through the Suchiate River into Mexico from Guatemala in the outskirts of Tapachula, Mexico, October 29, 2018. A second caravan of migrants bound for the U.S. border waded through the Suchiate River into Mexico after they clashes with Mexican police at the border bridge. Dozens were injured and one was killed by a rubber bullet. (Adrees Latif)
 
A United States Marine fortifies concertina wire along the San Ysidro Port of Entry border crossing as seen from Tijuana, Mexico on November 20, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, return to Mexico after being hit by tear gas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials after attempting to illegally cross the border wall into the United States in Tijuana, Mexico on November 25, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
Maria Meza, a 40-year-old migrant woman from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, runs away from tear gas with her five-year-old twin daughters Saira Mejia Meza (L) and Cheili Mejia Meza (R) in front of the border wall between the U.S and Mexico, in Tijuana, Mexico on November 25, 2018. (Kim Kyung Hoon)
 
A migrant from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, holds a young girl as others jump over the border wall to enter the United States illegally from Tijuana, Mexico on December 2, 2018. (Alkis Konstantinidis)
Andrea Nicole Arita, 10, from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, crawls through a hole under a border wall to illegally cross into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico on December 4, 2018. (Alkis Konstantinidis)
A man proceeds with caution as he pulls a raft with families seeking asylum from Central America as they illegally cross the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico as seen from Granjeno, Texas October 5, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
Mateo, a two-year-old migrant boy from Honduras, is led through dense brush by his mother Juana Maria after a group of two dozen families members illegally crossed the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico, in Fronton, Texas on October 18, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
U.S. Border Patrol agent Marcelino Medina looks for others as he apprehends a migrant woman and man for illegally crossing into the U.S. border from Mexico near McAllen, Texas on May 2, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
 
A nine year old migrant girl from Guatemala sits in the back of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle after she was apprehended for illegally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico in Sunland Park, New Mexico on June 14, 2018. (Adrees Latif)
Migrant children are led by staff in single file between tents at a detention facility next to the Mexican border in Tornillo, Texas on June 18, 2018. (Mike Blake)
The body of Misael Paiz, 25, a migrant from Guatemala, lies covered in a white cloth after it was located by U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Sonoran Desert in Pima County, Arizona on September 10, 2018. (Lucy Nicholson)
Friends and family carry a coffin with the remains of Jakelin Caal, a 7-year-old girl Guatemalan girl who died after she and her father were detained by U.S. border agents, during her funeral in her home village of San Antonio Secortez, Guatemala on December 25, 2018. (Carlos Barria)
A child from Honduras, draped in a covering with an image of the American flag, walks ahead of his mother towards a plane deporting migrants back to Honduras from Mexico, at the Tapachula International Airport in Tapachula, Mexico on October 31, 2018. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins)
 
Anita Areli Ramirez Mejia, an asylum seeker from Honduras separated from her six year-old son Jenri near the Mexico-U.S. border, is reunited with him in Harlingen, Texas on July 13, 2018. (Loren Elliott)

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Breaking News Photography in 2019:

Noah Berger, John Locher and Ringo H. W. Chiu of Associated Press

For devastating images that chronicled the historic 2018 fire season in California and captured the destruction from massive blazes as they spread at an extraordinary pace

Photography Staff of Associated Press

For searing images that chronicled clashes between Palestinians and Israelis in the Gaza Strip.

The Jury

Danese Kenon

Director, Photography & Video

J. David Ake

Director, Photography

Jonathan Bachman

freelance photographer, New Orleans, La.

Darcy Eveleigh

photo editor/visual journalist, Glen Ridge, N.J.

Michele McDonald

Photo Editor

Winners in Breaking News Photography

Ryan Kelly of The Daily Progress

For a chilling image that reflected the photographer’s reflexes and concentration in capturing the moment of impact of a car attack during a racially charged protest in Charlottesville, Va.

Daniel Berehulak, freelance photographer

For powerful storytelling through images published in The New York Times showing the callous disregard for human life in the Philippines brought about by a government assault on drug dealers and users. (Moved into this category from Feature Photography by the nominating jury.)

Photography Staff

For powerful images of the despair and anger in Ferguson, MO, stunning photojournalism that served the community while informing the country.

2019 Prize Winners