A Long, Tough Year of Favorites

Prospect Deputy Editor Gabrielle Gurley’s Best of 2020

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For journalists, 2020 was a caldron of unrelenting pandemic horrors. When we thought it couldn’t get any worse, it always did. We did our best. Here are mine.

The Edits

“Border Wall Desecrates Native American Lands in Southern California and Arizona”

There is no greater joy for an editor than when a great pitch lands in the in-box. This excellent story describes how indigenous peoples fight to maintain cross-border ties despite the machinations of a Republican president trying to score political points.

“Reality Check From Quarantine College”

A Prospect editorial intern explains how his life was turned inside out during the early days of the pandemic.

“Citizen Children Left Out of Coronavirus Relief Efforts Deserve a Lifeline”

Mixed-status families continue to suffer as American-born children of undocumented parents are excluded from payments to families.

The Reports and Op-Eds

“Welcome to the White House Terrordome”

“Black’s the mineral, white subliminal. Arrest the president, he’s the criminal.” President and chaos agent Donald Trump weaponized the White House in his MAGA crusade to dismantle America. This cri de coeur takes Trump and Congress to task for inciting the violence that exploded in a summer of protest. Featuring work by emerging Washington, D.C., artist Esteban Whiteside.

“The Virus of Frank Rizzo”

Philadelphia was hard-hit by the 2020 protests, and the city’s police department surprised no one when it tear-gassed protesters fleeing up a highway embankment, an episode that recalled the reflexes of Frank Rizzo, the city’s infamous police commissioner and mayor.

“Public Transportation in Crisis”

A comprehensive overview of the challenges facing the country’s transit system operators during a historic pandemic.

“America: Still Going Wrong After All These Years.” A Q&A with journalist James Steele.

The country’s slide into the cesspool of income inequality is real and dramatic. Yet the business press typically zeroes in on the stock market and macroeconomic indicators that fail to capture how far Americans have fallen as they try to make ends meet. Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele earned a Pulitzer Prize for their 1991 original series “America: What Went Wrong?” This 2020 update focuses on what happened in the interim.

“Like Southwest Louisiana, FEMA Is Worn Down”

The Southwest Louisiana coast was hit by more than its fair share of storms this past summer, forcing the battered emergency management agency into an impossibly complex situation of handling severe weather and COVID-19 after the pandemic spring of wildfires and floods.

“Florida’s Voter Suppression Obsession”

The Sunshine State blots out the sun when it comes to restoring the voting rights of returning citizens.

A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.

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