Honors a single story or a series of stories that uses photography and/or other visual media to more accurately portray a community that has traditionally been underrepresented or misrepresented in news media.

Jump to:

• Micro Division — Winner: The Margin
• Small Division — Winner: El Tecolote
• Medium Division — Winner: Inewsource
• Large Division — Winner: The Trace

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Insight Award for Visual Journalism – Micro division

The Margin

Pursuing Higher Ground: Six Months After the Hurricane That Changed Appalachia by Christian Monterrosa, Trey Walk, Bryce Cracknell

The Margin created an interactive, photo-driven news feature that captures and examines the human and environmental toll of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina in September 2024. The project includes more than 50 photographs, an interactive map that uses NOAA rainfall and wind speed data to illustrate the storm’s scale and impact, and “before-and-after” sliders that feature high-resolution satellite imagery and drone footage to show storm-ravaged neighborhoods months after the floodwaters receded. 

The visual and written elements of the feature “built off and complemented each other,” one judge wrote. “I have no qualms, complaints or suggestions. I would neither take anything away nor add anything else to the storytelling. No piece of this was wasted.”

Read the Winning Work

Pursuing Higher Ground

Finalists

• Toledo Free Press, Trans and Understanding, Lori King

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Insight Award for Visual Journalism – Small division

El Tecolote

San Francisco’s RV Communities Fight Displacement by Pablo Unzueta, Erika Carlos

In San Francisco, officials used parking laws and construction projects to evict its largest RV community — an issue El Tecolote exposed in a years-long investigation into that displacement. With the lack of affordable housing and stagnant wages, recreational vehicles “have become the last line of shelter for low-income workers, immigrant families and disabled residents” across California, the outlet reported. El Tecolote blended investigative reporting, photography, and social-first video to capture the human cost of uprooting families.

Judges described the stories as “excellent,” “poignant” and “wonderful.”

Read the Winning Work

Displaced RV community now fighting to stay parked on other S.F. streets 

RV community near SF State is uniquely Latinx — and getting pushed out

RV community fights to stay together amid displacement from Winston Drive

Displaced Winston Drive RV community hit with tickets, towing

Displaced Latinx RV residents secure S.F. housing as others struggle to park elsewhere

S.F. fast-tracks citywide RV ban: What it means for vehicle residents

Can San Francisco enforce its RV ban? Public records reveal doubts

Latinx RV community fights back against enforcement of S.F.’s decades-old parking ban

‘A tool of last resort’: How San Francisco’s controversial RV towing policy will work

‘We are risking it’: Winston Drive RV community take over empty SF Zoo lot

RV community in SF fights to stay together amid displacement

Displaced Latinx RV residents struggle to park elsewhere

Finalists

• Berkeleyside, Golden Gate Fields, Ximena Natera

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Insight Award for Visual Journalism – Medium division

Inewsource

Fentanyl: A Decade of Death by Steve Breen, Iran “JR” Martinez, Giovanni Moujaes, Jamie Self

Light blue pills scatter against a black background and gather into the shape of a skull in the main image of inewsources’ story about Fentanyl deaths in San Diego, California, and the rest of the nation, over the past decade. Keep scrolling to reveal more black and blue — illustrations and reporting that look more like a graphic novel than a typical news story. 

“I don’t remember seeing a piece of journalism told in this way before,” one judge said.

Together, the illustrations and reporting from editorial cartoonist Steve Breen as well as Iran “JR” Martinez, Giovanni Moujaes and Jamie Self explain the fentanyl crisis and consequences of using the drug while also highlighting some of the lives lost. About 75,000 people nationwide died from fentanyl in 2023. 

“The project fulfills the objective of the Insight Award,” one judge wrote. “It tells a story in a new way and by doing so, brings out new emotion and attention to this issue.”

The story was a 2025 Pulitzer Prize finalist in journalism for illustrated storytelling and commentary.

Read the Winning Work

Fentanyl: A Decade of Death

Finalist

• The Narwhal, ‘We’re Just Getting Started’: from Alberta to Montana, Blackfeet Guardians Hope to Bring Back the Buffalo Jump, Gavin John, Jimmy Thomson, Michelle Cyca

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Insight Award for Visual Journalism – Large division

The Trace

She Lost Her Sons to Shootings. She Now Carries Their Legacy by Vincent Alban

Photographer Vincent Alban’s photographs capture quiet moments of grief. A young man sitting in front of a rose-covered casket. Another young man sitting alone in a stairwell with his hands covering his face. A mother holding long-stem roses while squatting at a grave and lightly touching the gravestone. 

Other photos show family and friends of two teenage brothers who were killed by guns within a few years of each other. In some pictures, they’re gathered for a funeral, releasing balloons, or buying flowers to lay on a casket.

The photo essay spotlights the reality of survivors of gun violence, how they cope, and the “daily moments in a lifelong path of grief and endurance.”

“The photographs are intimate and patient,” one judge said. “What comes through so clearly is the years of trust the photographer has clearly earned — the rawness, the authenticity and vulnerability he captured in these images is proof. The technical quality of the photography is excellent and demonstrates the level of professionalism and time the photographer and The Trace have invested in telling the story of the impact of gun violence.” 

Read the Winning Work

She Lost Her Sons to Shootings. She Now Carries Their Legacy.

Finalists

• Retro Report, PBS, Citizen Nation, Staff