Malaysian-born Marcus Yam bags Pulitzer for photos of Kabul's fall

Malaysian-born Marcus Yam bags Pulitzer for photos of Kabul's fall


Los Angeles Times journalist Marcus Yam has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography for his pictures of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban a year ago.

According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, Malaysian-born Yam won the award for his “raw and urgent images of the US departure from Afghanistan that captured the human costs of the historic change in the country.”

The award for breaking news photography was shared with four photographers from Getty Images who covered the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by enraged supporters of ex-president Donald Trump.

Yam was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur and studied aerospace engineering at the University of Buffalo, from which he graduated in 2006. He switched to photography and joined the LA Times in 2014.

This is the third time the 38-year-old has won a share of the Pulitzer as he was part of two winning teams for breaking news.

In 2015, he won for his coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attacks, while the previous year he also bagged the prize as part of the Seattle Times team reporting on deadly landslides in Oso, Washington.

In 2019, Yam was awarded the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award for his unflinching body of work documenting the everyday plight of Palestinians during deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip.

Among his numerous other achievements include an Emmy Award for news and documentary, World Press Photo Award, Dart Award for Trauma Coverage, Scripps Howard Visual Journalism Award, Picture of the Year International’s Newspaper Photographer of the Year Award, Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award, National Headliner Award and Alfred I duPont-Columbia University Award.