Mona Chalabi, a freelance writer and illustrator who won a Pulitzer for the Times this year, also went public with criticism of the Pulitzer awards ceremony for overlooking Palestinian journalists

By Will Sommer

November 17, 2023 at 6:59 p.m. EST

As journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi sat through the ceremony last month where she would officially receive her Pulitzer Prize, she leaned over to her editor, Jake Silverstein of the New York Times, to show him her latest work.

It was a chart she had posted on Instagram, presenting data to suggest that the Times devotes less attention to Palestinian deaths than Israeli deaths in the ongoing Gaza conflict — and calling out the Times for “bias.”

She told The Washington Post she was late to the ceremony because she was rushing to post the chart first.

“Before I sat next to my editor at the New York Times to accept this prize, I wanted to publish this critique of the New York Times,” Chalabi said.

This week, in the latest flare-up of newsroom tensions over the Israel-Gaza war, the freelance contributor to the Times ramped up her criticism of the newspaper for which she won journalism’s biggest prize, in interviews and social media posts saying she believes the Times coverage of the war has favored the Israeli perspective over the Palestinian. She also took aim at the Pulitzers, saying she felt the plight of Palestinian journalists and civilians was overlooked during speeches.

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