Pulitzer Center Update

Vox Joins Pulitzer Center, Diversify Photo for Eyewitness Photojournalism Grant

The Eyewitness Photojournalism Grant. Graphic by Lucille Crelli.

The Eyewitness Photojournalism Grant. Graphic by Lucille Crelli.

The Pulitzer Center and Diversify Photo are thrilled to announce a new collaboration with Vox for the Eyewitness Photojournalism Grant, as well as an extension of the grant deadline to August 7, 2020.

The Eyewitness Grant supports underreported stories told by freelance photojournalists historically underrepresented in the American press. Now, as part of this program, one of the grant finalists will have the opportunity to work with the Vox editorial team to develop and publish a story along with their visual series.

We encourage photographers to continue seeking commitment from outlets to publish their work, but we hope this partnership with Vox will open doors for photographers still seeking a distribution plan to apply for the grant. 

During the judging process, Diversify Photo, the Pulitzer Center editorial team, and the Eyewitness jury will work with the Vox team to identify a recipient whose story will be published on the site.

"The American news media is a relationship-based industry and too often, this means audiences miss out on great stories from journalists without access to editors,” said Andrea Wise and Brent Lewis, co-founders of Diversify Photo. “We're thrilled to be partnering with such a conscientious and forward-thinking media outlet to ensure the stories we fund find an audience, regardless of applicants' prior relationships with editors." 

Vox exists to empower its readers through journalism that explains the ideas and issues shaping our country and the wider world beyond,” said Kainaz Amaria, Visuals Editor, Vox. “We are grateful to be able to partner with the Pulitzer Center and Diversify Photo, and look forward to working with one of the talented photographers—leveraging our platform to publish their work.” 

“The Pulitzer Center is thrilled to welcome Vox as a partner in the Eyewitness Photojournalism Grant,” said Marina Walker Guevara, the Center’s executive editor. “We need the leadership of news organizations like Vox to give visibility to the stories of journalists of color who historically have been underrepresented in American media.”

The purpose of the Eyewitness Grant is to increase access for photojournalists of historically marginalized backgrounds in the U.S. and domestic news media outlets. Diversify Photo, Vox, and the Pulitzer Center are committed to telling stories that expose systemic, global issues and hold the powerful accountable. When the journalists and editors who tell those stories come from many different backgrounds, journalism better reflects the nuance and complexity of our shared humanity. For much of the U.S.’s history, the people telling those stories and making the news have predominantly been white, wealthy, and male. By committing resources to photographers of color, we acknowledge the history of discrimination and barriers to opportunity that pervade the journalism industry, and seek to move forward by righting those wrongs. In so doing, we promote greater understanding of all of the communities around us. 

About Vox

Vox explains the news—making important issues clear and comprehensible and empowering its audience to shape the world in which they live. A Vox Media network, Vox is also home to influential verticals including Recode, The Goods, Future Perfect, and The Highlight; a robust podcast lineup featuring “Today, Explained,” “The Weeds,” “The Ezra Klein Show,” “Switched on Pop,” and more; and award-winning video production with popular series like “Missing Chapter” and “Earworm” on YouTube, “Glad You Asked” for YouTube Originals, “Answered” on Quibi, and “Explained” on Netflix.

About Diversify Photo

Diversify Photo is a community of BIPOC and non-western photographers, editors, and visual producers working to break with the predominantly colonial and patriarchal eye through which history and the mass media has seen and recorded the images of our time. Their international online database is used by editors at major media outlets seeking to diversify their rosters of visual storytellers, and they create networking, exhibiting, speaking, community-building, and resource-sharing opportunities for their members.

About the Pulitzer Center

The Pulitzer Center, founded in 2006 and based in Washington, DC, has become a major source of support for enterprise reporting on global issues—and an innovative leader in working with schools and universities to bring those issues into classrooms everywhere.

The Center now supports over 150 reporting projects a year. Its work with the Associated Press covering the war in Yemen won a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. The Center’s projects have been among the winners each of the past three years at the RFK Awards and the Overseas Press Club; the Center itself has been recognized for best online reporting by the National Press Foundation, the National Press Club, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

For more information and to submit a proposal, click here.