Reuters wins two Pulitzers for Trump power and Meta accountability reporting

Reuters took home two Pulitzer Prizes, in National Reporting and Beat Reporting, after a year of work that put the president’s use of government power and Meta’s treatment of users under the same hard accountability lens. The Pulitzer Prize Board announced the 2026 winners and finalists at Columbia University in New York, placing the wire service among the biggest winners of the year.

The National Reporting prize went to Ned Parker, Linda So, Peter Eisler and Mike Spector for work that documented how the president used the U.S. government and the influence of his supporters to expand executive power and exact vengeance on his foes. One of the central stories in that series, published Nov. 26, 2025, said Trump’s campaign of retribution had identified at least 470 targets and counting. The reporting traced how political power, personal loyalty and institutional muscle can be fused into a tool of punishment, a subject that has become one of the defining fault lines of the second Trump term.

The Beat Reporting prize went to Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham for reporting on Meta that showed how the company was willing to expose users, including children, to scams and AI manipulation. Reuters’ coverage included an Aug. 14, 2025 story on Meta AI rules that allowed bots to hold sensual chats with kids, along with later reporting on fraudulent ads and scam activity across Facebook and Instagram. Horwitz is a Reuters technology reporter based in San Francisco, and Tham is a special correspondent in Shanghai, underscoring the global reach of the investigation and the scale of the platform’s risks.

The awards also reflected a newsroom working across forms, not just text. Reuters was a finalist in Illustrated Reporting and Breaking News Photography, with the illustrated reporting team listed as Adolfo Arranz, Poppy McPherson, Devjyot Ghoshal and Han Huang. The recognition adds to a recent pattern: Reuters won a 2024 National Reporting Pulitzer for accountability reporting on Elon Musk’s businesses, and it won the 2020 Breaking News Photography Pulitzer for coverage of Hong Kong civil-liberties protests.

Taken together, the prizes point to what is breaking through nationally right now. In a media environment shaped by distrust, disinformation and pressure on newsrooms, Reuters was honored for reporting that follows power where it causes harm, whether in Washington or inside the automated systems of a tech giant. For readers and clients around the world, the double win reaffirmed the public-service role of investigative journalism at a moment when evidence matters more, not less.