SIU and Daily Egyptian Alum announced as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

May 9, 2024

Nicole Hester, a photojournalist at The Tennessean and a Southern Illinois University alumni, speaks about community storytelling April 13, 2024, in Alto Pass, Illinois.

Southern Illinois University and Daily Egyptian alum Nicole Hester is a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news photography for a photo from her coverage of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, last March.

A child weeps on a bus leaving the Covenant School, following a mass shooting that left six dead — three children and three adults — in Nashville, Tenn. on Monday, March 27, 2023. It was the deadliest mass shooting in Tennessee history. (Nicole Hester | The Tennessean)

Hester is a photojournalist from Champaign, Illinois, who is currently working at the Tennessean in Nashville. She holds her Bachelor of Science in photojournalism from Southern Illinois University and has held roles at multiple publications in her time leading up to her current position at the Tennessean.

Her heart-wrenching photo of a young school shooting survivor being evacuated from Covenant School shows Hester’s dedication to photojournalism and her responsibility as a photojournalist to bring knowledge of these tragic events to not only the Nashville community, but the nation.

“The anguish on that little girl’s face is the anguish that all of us feel and continue to feel, it’s a hard image. It should be a hard image because it’s a hard reality. So don’t look away,” Hester told the Tennessean.

This is the fourth time the Tennessean has been a Pulitzer finalist, the last time being in 2011 for its coverage of the historic Nashville flood.

Since this photo was captured, Hester has continued to cover the families affected and political action taking place in Nashville with fierce journalism.

News Editor Joei Younker can be reached at [email protected]