Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir): Rafiq Maqbool, a Kashmiri photojournalist, and Eranga Jayawardena, his Sri Lankan counterpart have missed the Pulitzer Prize 2023 by a whisker after being named finalists for the prestigious award, sources said. It is learnt that Rafiq and Eranga were named as finalists alongside Lynsey Addario of The New York Times for breaking news photography in 2023 for pictures portraying fury over Sri Lanka's economic collapse.
"Rafiq Maqbool and Eranga Jayawardena of Associated Press (AP). For a compelling visual narrative documenting public fury over Sri Lanka’s economic collapse, including clashes between protesters and police, the takeover of government buildings and jubilation as protesters occupied the plush presidential mansion,” a statement by the Columbia University, which announces the awards said in a statement.
Also read:Open letter against Pulitzer prize to Kashmir-based photojournalists
The 2023 Pulitzer Prize winners were revealed by the Columbia University on Monday evening. "At a time when the media business is abuzz with excitement and anxiety about powerful new tech tools, there is nothing — nothing — artificial about the courageous reporting and storytelling the Pulitzer Prizes honors today. Journalism is a differentiator, not a commodity," said President Neil Brown, the co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Rafiq has lived in Mumbai since 2009 and has covered some of South Asia's most challenging assignments for AP, including his homeland Kashmir. He has extensively documented militancy and violence at its peak in the late 1990s, including the Kargil war between India and Pakistan, as well as the devastating earthquake in the region in 2005.
Rafiq has covered projects such as the Afghan conflict for almost a decade and was stationed full-time in Kabul between 2007 and 2009. Rafiq has also covered the 2004 floods in Bangladesh and the 2005 tsunami in Sri Lanka. He traveled to the country in 2009 to capture the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, and he was there again in 2022 to document another political upheaval in the country.
Rafiq has missed out on joining the elite club of Kashmiri Pulitzer Prize winners. So far, three Kashmiri photojournalists have received the coveted prize in the category of Feature Photography. Last year, photojournalist Sanna Irshad Matoo of Reuters won the prestigious award besides Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of AP in 2020.
As for this year's Pulitzer prize, in Punlic service (Journalism) category, Associated Press has won the prize for the work of Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko and Lori Hinnant. Likewise, Staff of the Los Angeles Times has won the prize in breaking news category. Staff of The Wall Street Journal has won the award in Investigative Reporting category.
