ProPublica’s visual storytelling department — including the staff films team and independent photographers who the department partnered with on various projects — were honored with multiple awards by the National Press Photographers Association in its Best of Photojournalism awards. The competition recognizes all types of photojournalism, including images, stories, videos and presentations that impact the world we live in.

ProPublica’s visuals editors won first place for editor of the year, team, in the national category. The group is composed of senior editor for visual storytelling Boyzell Hosey, art director Lisa Larson-Walker, visual strategy editor Andrea Wise, visual editors Alex Bandoni and Peter DiCampo, engagement reporter Asia Fields and videographer Liz Moughon, and partner photographers Stacy Kranitz, Kitra Cahana, Russel Albert Daniels, Adria Malcolm, Philip Cheung, Kim Raff, Rachel Woolf, Trent Davis Bailey, Sarah A. Miller and William DeShazer

The team was also recognized for best use of photography in the following projects:

• Doctors Warned Her Pregnancy Could Kill Her. Then Tennessee Outlawed Abortion. (photography by Kranitz)
• Here’s What Can Happen When Kids Age Out of Foster Care (photography by Cahana)
• A Scientist Said Her Research Could Help With Repatriation. Instead, It Destroyed Native Remains. (photography by Daniels)
• The Federal Government Accidentally Burned Down Their Houses, Then Made It Hard to Come Home (photography by Malcom)
• Inside the Secretive World of Penile Enlargement (photography by Cheung)
• Falling Apart (photography by Miller and Fields)
• People Who Used Recalled Philips Breathing Machines Face Painful Choices (photography by Moughon)
• Barricaded Siblings Turn to TikTok While Defying Court Order to Return to Father They Say Abused Them (photography by Raff)
• How Tennessee’s Justice System Allows Dangerous People to Keep Guns — With Deadly Outcomes (photography by DeShazer)
• When Foster Parents Don't Want to Give Back the Baby (photography by Woolf and Bailey)

Visual journalist Mauricio Rodríguez Pons won first place in the documentary editor category for “The Night Doctrine.” The animated documentary, co-published in partnership with The New Yorker, follows the story of Lynzy Billing, a young Afghan-Pakistani journalist who embarks on a journey to find out who killed her family 30 years ago, only to discover that hundreds of civilians had been killed in a secretive American-backed program in Afghanistan. Billing’s quest takes her through the streets of Kabul and Nangarhar province as she uncovers the truth about the Zero Units, squads of Afghan commandos funded, trained and directed by the CIA to go after threats to the United States. The film is a continuation of Billing’s reporting in “The Night Raids,” a gripping and powerful investigation published in 2022.

“With Every Breath” won first place in the documentary short form category. The short documentary filmed and edited by videographer Liz Moughon is an intimate glimpse into what happens when people learn that a lifesaving device may cause them harm. Weaving personal stories with lush cinematography, the 20-minute film accompanies the investigative series about the recall of Philips Respironics’ continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP machines; the series, also called “With Every Breath,” was published in partnership with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The documentary centers the stories of three people who face the unanswerable question of how their health has been affected by using the recalled machines and follows a sleep medicine doctor who leads her patients through the chaotic recall. The film was produced by Liz Moughon, Almudena Toral, Debbie Cenziper and Michael D. Sallah of the Post-Gazette. Rodríguez Pons, Margaret Cheatham Williams, Gerardo Del Valle, Benjamin B. Braun, Kanon Havens, Winslow Crane-Murdoch and Michael Korsh contributed to the film.

“With Every Breath” also won second place in the documentary of the year category. Moughon won second place in the documentary editor category.

“This Scientist Tracked Bats for Decades and Solved a Mystery About a Deadly Disease,” by photographer and filmmaker Kathleen Flynn, won second place in the category of culture, sports and science, online video, individual. The video, which is part of a series on pandemic prevention, follows the work it took ecologist Peggy Eby and her colleagues to crack the Hendra virus mystery.

See a list of all the NPPA Award winners.