Guardian, Washington Post share Pulitzer for Snowden exposé stories

The Guardian and The Washington Post shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on leaks from former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that revealed a global surveillance network monitoring millions of Americans and foreigners.

The British and American newspapers won the award for public service journalism given by the Pulitzer committee on Monday at Columbia University in New York, for sparking debate on secretive NSA programmes.

The shared award went to the two newspapers credited with breaking the news about NSA surveillance, without specifically citing the journalists involved.

Both newspapers relied on documents leaked by Snowden, a former NSA contractor who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and is being sought for prosecution in the US.

The reporters who played key roles in the story included Glenn Greenwald, who has since left The Guardian, and colleague Ewen MacAskill. Barton Gellman, who already has two Pulitzers, was the writer of most of The Washington Post reports.

Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who was the point of contact for Snowden, had the unusual distinction of sharing bylines in both The Guardian and the Post on the topic.

In arguably the most influential story of the decade, The Guardian and Post broke sensational ground by exposing how the US government monitors the data of millions.