"The New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson and the contributor Andy Kroll have been named 2025 winners of Polk Awards, among the highest honors in journalism. Anderson received the Sydney Schanberg Prize for his reporting on decades of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where regional and global actors have fuelled one of the world's most vicious entrenched conflicts. Kroll, a reporter at ProPublica, was recognized for a profile of Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025 who has used his latest role, as the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, to hobble government agencies, decimate the federal workforce, and expand President Trump's powers in ways that challenge the Constitution."
"The article combines deep historical context with up-to-the-minute developments, taking in the legacies of colonialism and slavery while also explicating contemporary factors in the bloodshed, including ethnic rivalries, international competition over resources, and diplomatic maneuvers by the Trump Administration."
"Many of the people I talked with in Congo wished fervently for a new way of life but seemed barely able to conceive of one," Anderson observes."
Two journalists received 2025 Polk Awards for investigative work: one for decades-long reporting on war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and another for a profile examining efforts to reshape the federal government. The Congo reporting documents up to six million deaths from violence, displacement, disease, and famine, and identifies colonial legacies, ethnic rivalries, resource competition, and international diplomatic maneuvers as drivers of the conflict. The profile details actions to hobble government agencies, reduce the federal workforce, and expand presidential power in ways that raise constitutional concerns. Reporting included interviews with rebel leaders, medical personnel, regional figures, and ordinary citizens.
Read at The New Yorker
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