WASHINGTON — Three Washington Post photographers won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for breaking news photography in Haiti in the days and months following the country's devastating earthquake.
Photographers Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti shared the prize and were cheered by dozens who gathered in the Post's newsroom, where plastic champagne flutes lined a filing cabinet. The judges said their photos were an "up-close portrait of grief and desperation" following the catastrophic quake in January 2010.
"They are three exemplary photojournalists whose compassion comes through in their work," Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said.
This was the fourth Pulitzer for Guzy, who had been covering Haiti long before the earthquake.
"I started my career covering Haiti, and my heart's always been there," she said. "That country's been through so much torture ... over the years it just keeps getting slammed."
For Guzy, one of the lasting images from her work over the past year was a photograph of a girl in a school uniform who had been crushed at her desk.
"She's just the picture of innocence," Guzy said. "We knew that the students were still sitting at their desks, so it was just a moment of people going about their daily lives and then boom, the earth trembled and life stopped."
The win came 25 years after Guzy won her first Pulitzer Prize with Kahn's husband, Michel duCille, at The Miami Herald. Now duCille is the Post's photography director.
Post Co. Chairman Don Graham joined the newsroom celebration and hugged the photographers.
Kahn traveled back to Haiti several times after the earthquake, and Carioti documented the aftermath seven months after the quake.
"I think the amazing thing was the opportunity to go back throughout the year and check up on the people I photographed on the first trip," Kahn said. "It was incredibly important to find the strength to go out and show the world what the Haitian people were going through."
Carioti said he wanted to see the Pulitzer announcement online before he would believe he won.
"For me, I had never been to Haiti," he said. "Just the shock of the conditions that people were living in seven months letter. ... I'm sure it's probably worse now."
Washington Posts journalists also were finalists in two other categories: explanatory reporting and editorial writing.
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