A PULITZER INJUSTICE. You probably remember when you first saw the photo of President Donald Trump last year, moments after being shot in an assassination attempt, blood on his face, his fist raised, shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Without any doubt, it was the photo of the year and probably the decade.
There were certainly other dramatic pictures of the events in Butler, Pennsylvania, that day, but the “Fight” photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci, quickly became the iconic image of the assassination attempt. Trump’s defiance and physical courage stood out in a moment that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Some compared the picture to historic news photos like the one of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima in World War II.
More than one observer predicted the contest for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography was over — Vucci would be the runaway winner.
It didn’t happen that way. The Pulitzers were announced on Monday, and Vucci’s photo was nowhere to be seen. Instead, New York Times photographer Doug Mills won for his pictures of the assassination attempt, including one in which Mills inadvertently caught the image of a bullet whizzing by Trump.
There’s no doubt that there was politics in the background of the decision. Back in July 2024, just a couple of days after the shooting, Axios wrote, “After the Trump rally shooting, three images stood out immediately. They’ve come to be known in newsrooms as the ‘Evan photo’ by AP’s Evan Vucci, the ‘Anna photo’ by Getty’s Anna Moneymaker, and the ‘bullet photo’ by the New York Times’ Doug Mills.”
The “Evan photo” was the defiant image. The “Anna photo” was an extraordinary close-up, taken at stage level, of Trump’s blood-streaked face when he was being held down by Secret Service agents. And the “bullet photo” was an otherwise unremarkable picture of Trump standing at the podium that just happened, an occurrence the odds of which just can’t be calculated, to catch the streak of a bullet passing by Trump.
Still, as a photograph, as a dramatic image that tells the story of an event, the Evan photo was unrivaled. And that, apparently, is why some journalists worried about it. There is no doubt that it made Trump look heroic. It was so striking that it was reproduced everywhere. It was memorable; it stuck in people’s minds. And in an election year, with so much of the media biased against Trump, that was a problem.
From Axios, again in 2024: “A photo editor and photographer from a major news outlet said the ‘amount that publications have been using Evan’s photo is kind of free PR for Trump in a way, and it’s dangerous for media organizations to keep sharing that photo, despite how good it is.’ Another photographer who has freelanced for major publications worried that the photo would become a ‘propaganda machine,’ with the image itself making Trump ‘a martyr.’”
Did the Pulitzer board share those concerns? It doesn’t discuss such things, at least publicly. But there is no doubt that voices in the journalistic establishment worried that the photo simply made Trump look too good.
Even if the Pulitzer board members were determined not to spotlight Vucci’s photo, there were more equitable courses they could have taken. They could have chosen to give the award to all three photographers — Vucci, Mills, and Moneymaker — or split it between Vucci and Mills or Vucci and Moneymaker. The Vucci photo was the obvious standout, but at least it would have been among those honored.
Or they could have done the right thing and awarded the prize to Vucci. Years from now, his photo will be remembered as one of the most important images of this era — no matter what the Pulitzer board decided.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
