Two recent Media School alumni are among this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team members.

Ellen Glover, BAJ’18, was a reporter on the team that won the National Reporting category for “Mauled,” an investigation into police K-9 units around the country. The project was a collaboration by The Invisible Institute, the Marshall Project, AL.com and IndyStar.

Anna Boone, BAJ’17, was a digital designer on the Minneapolis Star Tribune team that won the Breaking News Reporting category for its coverage of the murder of George Floyd.

Conducting investigative work of this degree, Glover said, requires patience and passion. She advises student journalists to believe in what they’re doing and keep trying. “Mauled” took more than a year to create, she said.

Glover conducted interviews, wrote, fact checked and analyzed data for the project.

“Awards are great, but at the end of the day you need to be driven by the truth and by doing your story justice,” Glover said.

Boone compiled reporting, photography, videography and social media posts from her colleagues and public officials following the murder of George Floyd into a visual timeline. The project, “One Week in Minneapolis,” was one of seven pieces the Star Tribune submitted to the Pulitzer committee.

“One of the harder-to-stomach parts of journalism is that it can feel like a lot of awards hinge around horrible tragedies,” Boone said. “I was thankful to see the Pulitzers awarded a Special Citation to Darnella Frazier — her courage showed the world, including our newsroom, the truth.”

Boone said it’s important to remember that whether you win anything or not, the stories you work on have worth and value to the communities you serve.

Glover joined the Invisible Institute in 2018 as a fellow after covering executive director Jamie Kalven when he visited The Media School in 2018. She continues to work there as a freelancer, in addition to working as a full-time reporter with Chicago-based startup Built In.

“I wouldn’t have gotten this job at the Invisible Institute had I not been a reporter with the IU Media School,” she said.

She was also associate producer for “Somebody” — a podcast series published with the Intercept last summer investigating the murder of a young Black man in Chicago — which was a Pulitzer finalist in the Audio category.