Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
In 2022, the Pulitzer Center supported photojournalism that captured a wide array of the year’s most definitive moments. The work featured here exemplifies visual storytelling with depth and nuance. These images show the heartbreak of conflict, demands for justice, and the global fight for liberty and equality. They beckon viewers to witness the effects of deforestation and meet the communities living on the front lines of climate change.
Together, this collection of Pulitzer Center-supported work visualizes our mission to raise awareness of underreported global issues, sustain attention on urgent stories, and hold those in power to account. Our grants and fellowships for freelance and staff photojournalists aim to cultivate equal representation of voices in our work and the journalism we support.
Photojournalism is a powerful mechanism to provoke positive change. Universally understood, visual storytelling communicates across languages, distances, and lived experiences. It takes great care, intention, and determination to produce work with such impact, and we are thankful to our grantees and reporting partners for furthering the Pulitzer Center's mission.
"A visibilidade de mulheres como Sônia Guajajara, Joenia Wapichana, Vanda Witoto e Maial Kaiapó, tem atraído a atenção de muitas meninas e jovens mulheres indígenas nas aldeias, que já pensam em também ocupar espaços na política no futuro.
A inclusão dessas mulheres na política é fundamental, já que a ausência de políticas públicas para os indígenas está justamente relacionada à falta de representantes nos espaços onde são tomadas as decisões."
— GABRIELA PORTILHO
"The visibility of women like Sonia Guajajara, Joenia Wapichana, Vanda Witoto, and Maial Kaiapó in politics has attracted the attention of many Indigenous girls and young women in the villages, who are already thinking about also occupying spaces in politics in the future.
Their inclusion in these spaces is essential, since the absence of public policies for Indigenous peoples is precisely related to the lack of representatives in the spaces where decisions are taken."
"Colombia’s coffee region has long captured my attention not only due to its stunning natural landscape, but also the profound industrial and cultural impact that human activity has had on the land.
My narrative writing and photographic approach to this story was to pay respect to this beauty, tension, and uncertainty, particularly through the voices and faces of Jose Fernando Tavárez and Ruben Dario. Though of different backgrounds, both men are rooted in their homeland and offer us an example of how to move through dramatic change and uncertainty with dignity and grace."
— BRETT MARSH
"I see the issue of heat stress and work to be one of the growing challenges we face in light of climate change. Focusing on Nepalese workers who had traveled to Qatar to work on the World Cup facilities was a timely and important way to amplify this issue to a global audience.
The value of visual reporting is only growing in impact, and to have this work appear during the World Cup couldn’t have been better timing to emphasize the need to address this pressing issue."
— ED KASHI
"Documentary work in countries affected by conflict often focuses on scenes of destruction, suffering and displacement. We wanted to show a different side of this story, where people fight to put a stop to violence and bring harmony back to their communities.
This project is important to us because it shows that women, and Congolese civilians in general, are not just victims, they also display incredible resilience and determination to end the ongoing brutal wars."
— HUGH KINSELLA CUNNINGHAM
"The most difficult part of my project Kashmir’s Tribal Women Suffer Very Poor Menstrual Health. What’s to Blame? was to narrate the story visually. I spent time with the women and made them comfortable enough to get photographed. Since I wanted to show what they go through during their periods, I waited for two of my characters to menstruate and started documenting them.
The idea of the story took birth after seeing the women suffer during their periods because they couldn’t dry their clothes in the open owing to the taboo that no one should see the cloth used for periods. It was during that time that I got the idea of documenting this story because I knew there was more to what I was witnessing."
— SHEFALI RAFIQ
"Working on What Remains was the most challenging and rewarding process I have experienced. It was only possible because of the women who were brave enough to share the most traumatic losses of their lives.
Through organic relationships and deep trust, I felt extremely privileged to be allowed in to make images that spoke both to the tragedies, but also to the moments of joy and resilience that helped this community start to heal."
— LEXI PARRA
"Passados quase 4 anos desse governo era importante mostrar as consequências dessa política de não demarcação dos territórios e os impactos nessas populações indígenas. Os indígenas tem uma relação profunda com o território. Não é só o lugar onde moram e conseguem o alimento.
A floresta, o rio, os animais são a própria existência desses povos. Não proteger esses territórios significa exterminar essas culturas."
— LALO DE ALMEIDA
"After almost four years of this government, it was important to show the consequences of this policy of not demarcating territories and the impacts on these Indigenous populations. It is not only the place where they live and get food.
The forest, the river, the animals are the very existence of these peoples. Not protecting these territories means exterminating these cultures."
"Melalui project ini, saya mendapat perspektif kreatif dari masyarakat lokal, tentang bagaimana upaya mereka dalam menjaga hutan di sebuah lanskap yang memiliki interkoneksi unik, antara manusia, satwa, tumbuhan, bahkan makhluk gaib dalam dunia kosmologi mereka.
Sejauh ini, apa yang saya lakukan terkait project ini, telah membangkitkan semangat di tingkat masyarakat lokal untuk menjaga hutan mereka, tentunya dengan cara mereka sendiri."
— NOPRI ISMI
"Through this project, I got creative perspectives from local communities on how they try to protect the forest in a landscape that has unique interconnections between humans, animals, plants, and even supernatural beings in their cosmological world.
So far, what I've done with this project has generated enthusiasm at the local community level to protect their forests, in their own way."
"Durante el proyecto Until We Are Gone usé prácticas colaborativas, en donde algunos miembros de la comunidad de San José de Gracia, usaron dibujos hechos por ellos mismos para relatar una parte de su historia que estaba indocumentada.
Encontré esta colaboración importante, ya que ellos fueron los que vivieron esta experiencia. Con esta práctica se generó un despertar entre los miembros para conservar la memoria de San José de Gracia."
— SOFIA ALDINIO
"During the project Until We Are Gone I used collaborative practices, where some members of the community of San José de Gracia, used drawings made by themselves to tell a part of their history that was undocumented.
I found this collaboration important, since they were the ones who lived this experience. This practice generated an awakening among the members to preserve the memory of San José de Gracia."
“It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Pulitzer Center.” This sentiment is something we hear often from our more than 300 journalist grantees and Reporting Fellows working to bring systemic, underreported issues to light in 80-plus countries around the world every year.
We believe in the power of journalism to create positive, real-world change. This is central to our mission—and in this crucial moment for journalism, we are contextualizing complex issues for our readers and pointing to possible solutions. The collaborative networks we create between independent journalists and newsrooms, locally and globally, are working to strengthen news ecosystems in the longer term.
Our community engagement and education programs help bridge divides and create connections between the local and the global. As a reader shared in our audience survey, the Pulitzer Center is “building bridges of empathy, affinity, and understanding—especially between people who may believe they are vastly different.” These programs also help build trust in, and respect for, journalism by connecting journalists directly to current and future audiences. As another reader shared, the Center "helps give confidence that good journalism matters.”
We see the ripple effects of our impact across journalists’ careers, in newsrooms, in the education sector, and at the policy level. This work would not be possible without the support of readers like you. Will you help our in-depth, investigative journalism continue to shine a light on systemic issues and elevate underreported stories in 2023 and beyond?
CURATION
Elliott Adams
Alonso Balbuena
Fernanda Buffa
Lucille Crelli
Grace Jensen
Katherine Jossi
Sarah Swan
Daniel Vasta
COPY WRITERS
Grace Jensen
Katherine Jossi
Sarah Swan
Daniel Vasta
Alexandra Waddell
Ethan Widlansky
COPY EDITORS
Grace Jensen
Katherine Jossi
Sarah Swan
Dana Thompson
Alexandra Waddell
Ethan Widlansky
DESIGN
Lucille Crelli
PRODUCTION
Katherine Jossi
Sarah Swan
Daniel Vasta
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Fernanda Buffa
Ann Peters
Detty Saluling
Kem Sawyer
PAST YEAR IN PHOTOS