Editorial cartoonist and former California Institute of the Arts School of Film/Video faculty Ann Telnaes (Film/Video BFA 1985) was awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary on Monday, May 5. This is Telnaes’ second Pulitzer.

Telnaes won her first Pulitzer in 2001 for “editorial cartooning” while working for Tribune Media Services with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

Her second Pulitzer award arrives on the heels of headlines about Telnaes’ work with her previous employer earlier this year. In January, The Washington Post nixed Telnaes’ cartoon depicting various tech chiefs, including Jeff Bezos, who purchased the Washington Post in 2013, paying homage to President Donald Trump by offering up bags of cash.

Telnaes then quit working for the paper in protest, stating on her Substack that she’d “never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at,” and described the refusal to publish as “dangerous” for the free press.

The Pulitzer was awarded to her for “delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years.”

The Pulitzer Prize in Illustrated Reporting and Commentary is among the 15 prizes awarded for journalism in the United States, with recipients selected for a “distinguished portfolio of editorial cartoons or other illustrated work (still, animated, or both) characterized by political insight, editorial effectiveness, or public service value.”

See the full list of 2025 winners at the Pulitzer Prizes’ official site.

Editorial cartoon rejected by The Washington Post in January 2025 by Ann Telnaes