The Pulitzer Prize Winner Who Now Works at a Brewery
Every journalist dreams of winning a Pulitzer Prize someday.
For Ryan Kelly, that day came eight months after he started a full-time job outside of journalism.
Kelly, 31, is the photojournalist who captured the brutal moment a car rammed into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. That attack killed one person, Heather Heyer, and injured nearly 20 others. Kelly's searing image—which shows the violent and chaotic seconds just after impact—was published in The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, where he was a staff photographer.
Remarkably, it was Kelly's last day on staff: He had already put in his notice and accepted a digital marketing job at a brewery. While he remains active as a photojournalist, today it's only on a part-time, freelance basis.
On Monday, Kelly was amazed to discover that his photograph had been awarded a Pulitzer, alongside rapper Kendrick Lamar, art critic Jerry Saltz, the investigative reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal and other prize winners.
This is a depressingly familiar story: The lag time between when Pulitzer-worthy work is produced and when the prizes in local media—pretty much guarantees that some winners will leave journalism before receiving the prize. Kelly wasn't laid off, but the anxiety of eventual layoffs contributed to his decision.
