A compelling portrait that captures an aspect of the subject’s character.
First Place
André Chung, Freelance for The Washington Post
Mike Fanone hates MAGA: Former Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone stands for a portrait at his home in Haymarket, VA on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. He was at the Capitol on Jan 6, defending it against insurrectionists. They tased him several times, causing several heart attacks. He subsequently left the police force. His testimony before Congress was material to the investigation.
Second Place
Frank Thorp V, NBC
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Third Place
Claire Harbage, NPR
: Abrar Saleh Ali, 17, poses for a portrait at the Milé refugee camp where she now lives on September 18, 2024. She arrived at the Milé refugee camp in Eastern Chad in early September, after the civil war in Sudan destroyed her home and she was separated from her family. It took months for her to walk across the country and reach the camp. Along the way she was robbed of all her belongings and found out that her sister had been killed. September 18, 2024.
Award of Excellence
Carol Guzy, Independent
A SISTER’S FUTILE SEARCH: Faten Masalmeh searches for clues in etchings on walls about her brother Tareq Masalmeh, missing since 2013, at the notorious Sednaya prison where countless men disappeared amid accounts of torture during the brutal Assad regime in Damascus Syria on Tuesday December 17, 2024. She believed prisoners communicated via water pipes when soldiers cut off water at night and she listens now at each cell for any sound, holding onto hope. She remembers how a Syrian army sniper shot her husband at their home and he bled to death. They kept shooting from all directions to prevent anyone from taking him to hospital. A rebel offensive led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ousted President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates more than 100,000 people died in Syrian prisons and now desperate family members search for their disappeared loved ones. Many bodies were said to be pressed on a machine and dumped in mass graves. Most loved ones will not find the peace and closure that a proper burial can bring.
Award of Excellence
Frank Thorp V, NBC
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Award of Excellence
Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters
Jennifer Adkins: Jennifer Adkins, the lead plaintiff in Adkins v. Idaho, holds her youngest child at her home in Caldwell, Idaho. Jennifer testified about her experience of needing to travel to Oregon for an abortion when she found out at 12 weeks that her baby would likely not survive and that she would develop life-threatening conditions if she continued that pregnancy, in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Idaho women denied abortions despite facing serious pregnancy complications, in Caldwell, Idaho, U.S., November 14, 2024.