Idrees Kahloon of The Economist and Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today are the first winners of the National Press Foundation’s 2020 Poverty and Inequality Awards.

Murphy and Stein meticulously documented how the federal-level failure of the CDC, a $7 billion agency charged with protecting Americans’ health, translated into chaos and confusion for state and local authorities trying to prevent outbreaks from escalating into thousands of preventable deaths.

Molly Ball had written a 2018 cover story on Pelosi for Time Magazine but dug still deeper in 2020 to give readers insight into the enigmatic and powerful Speaker. Among other insights, Ball illuminated the thinking behind Pelosi’s decision to impeach President Donald Trump.

The winning cartoons offered indelible visual commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic, the fallout from George Floyd’s murder, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the U.S. Postal Service during the 2020 election.