reporting on China’s Xinjiang detention camps. She made her International Reporting for BuzzFeed News along with Alison Killing and Christo Buschek. This is the first for the website since its inception in 2012.
The team earned the award for their exclusive work in exposing China’s Uyghur Detention Camps. They made a series of clear and engaging stories that utilized satellite imagery and architectural expertise, along with interviews with dozens former inmates, to reveal a large new infrastructure erected by the Chinese government for the mass imprisonment of Muslims.
Six articles from the team were appreciated by the Prize administration; the first three of which belonged to a series released on August 26, 2020. According to BuzzFeed News, Megha was the first person to visit a Chinese internment camp in 2017. It was the time when the Chinese government reportedly denied the presence of such camps.
Megha, who was later expelled from China, told the media that she was surprised by the award announcement and that she had not expected it. Megha also thanked her supporters, Killing and Buschek, her editor Alex Campbell, BuzzFeed News’ public relations staff, and the organizations who financed their investigation. This also includes Pulitzer Center, the Open Technology Fund, and the Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism.
Megha appreciated the former detainees who shared their experiences inside the camps, which have been invaluable for her investigation. A total of 28 people were questioned by the team. Megha took to twitter and revealed her father’s conservative Indian dad response to the news in a tweet. Her father called her after her tweet went viral and responded with an emotional answer that was definitely not understated!
Apart from Megha, another Indian American journalist, Neil Bedi, was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting with Kathleen McGrory of the Tampa Bay Times. The prize was awarded for their investigation on a Florida county police department that employed computer modeling to discover prospective crime suspects, including minors with poor grades or who had been abused at home.
