The winners of the 2026 Pulitzer Prizes, honoring the past year’s best journalism, were announced last night, and the Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary went to Anand RK, Suparna Sharma, and Natalie Obiko Pearson, for their comic strip trAPPed. The comic, published by Bloomberg on December 4, 2025, tells the story of Dr. Ruchika Tandon, an Indian neurologist held under “digital arrest” via a phone scam. It was published as part of a larger story by Sharma and Pearson, India’s Digital Dream, Hacked, uncovering digital scams in India.
Extract taken from trAPPed page 2
The trio were nominated alongside Adolfo Arranz, Poppy McPherson, Devjyot Ghoshal, and Han Huang of Reuters (for Scammed Into Scamming); Ivan Ehlers (for two Los Angeles Times contributions); and Peter Kuper (freelancer for Truthdig and more). The jury consisted of Mariel Garza (Golden State); Susie Cagle (The San Francisco Standard); Alberto Cairo (Knight Chair in Infographics and Data Visualization, University of Miami); cartoonist Jess Ruliffson; and last year’s Pulitzer winner, Ann Telnaes.
Anand RK (full name Anand Radhakrishnan) is an Eisner Award-winning artist based in Mumbai, whose other work includes Blue in Green, Resurrection Man, and Radio Apocalypse, as well as covers for various publishers. Sharma is a freelance journalist and editor, while Pearson is Bloomberg‘s senior investigative reporter for Asia. The comic was colored by Nisha Singh, lettered by Aditya Bidikar, and translated by Zeeshan Hasan Akhtar.
The prize marked the only one for Bloomberg this year, out of three nominations. For more of this year’s recipients, head to the official Pulitzer website. The winners will be honored at a ceremony later this year.
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