Average donor gave $67, Kobach says

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Marjory Stoneman Douglas senior Rebecca Schneid, 17, who is co-editor-in-chief of the school's Eagle Eye student publication, told USA TODAY that, "Obviously the work that we did after the shooting was the hardest thing that we ever had to do but it was also the most important thing that we've ever done and that I've ever done as a student journalist."

Schneid said that the reason the Parkland students wanted to attend the Pulitzer ceremony was to "show that student journalism has a place in society and that it deserves to be recognized if it's exemplary. Whether you've gone through something as traumatic as we have or you are just in a student journalism program that's working really hard to make an impact in your community you deserve to be recognized for that and you shouldn't be held back by your age....No matter what we do we always are very aware of the fact that we are here in memory of the people that we've lost."

The staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was also recognized, for its “breaking news” coverage of yet another unthinkable act, the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

And a special Pulitzer citation was given to the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, where last June a shooter murdered five employees, the largest killing of U.S. journalists in their newsroom history. The Pulitzer Board citation came with a $100,000 bequest to be used to further the newspaper’s journalistic mission.Also in attendance at the luncheon were two journalists from Reuters who were recently released in Myanmar after being jailed there for more than 500 days. The Pulitzer winners, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, had been imprisoned for exposing the systematic mass killing of Muslims in the country. Reuters maintained their innocence throughout the ordeal while calling for the men’s release.