Two-time Pulitzer winner. Columnist, podcaster, author, speaker, teacher, storyteller, wannabe playwright, general ass, but not by today’s standards.

Welcome to the Official Website of John Archibald

John Archibald has been a journalist in the South for more than 35 years. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a voice of the deep South and what that place means to America.

Archibald is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, author of “Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution,” published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2021 and included as one of NPR’s favorite books of the year.

He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2020-2021, and taught column writing at Harvard Summer School. While at Harvard he studied alternative storytelling and how algorithms in digital news affect perceptions of crime and contribute to polarization. He was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer for commentary. The Pulitzer Prize jury described his columns as "lyrical and courageous commentary that is rooted in Alabama but has a national resonance in scrutinizing corrupt politicians, championing the rights of women and calling out hypocrisy."

Archibald was lead reporter on the 2023 Pulitzer for Local Reporting, which examined out-of-control policing in the tiny Alabama town of Brookside, Ala. That work led prosecutors and judges to drop scores of felony charges against drivers, and convinced the Alabama Legislature to pass four laws to discourage the kind of behavior he uncovered in Brookside. The team included his son, data reporter Ramsey Archibald, along with reporter Ashley Remkus and editor Challen Stephens. The Brookside story also won national awards including the George Polk Award for local reporting, the Sidney Hillman Award for web journalism, and a Best-in-Show National Headliner Award.

The Atlantic asked John and Ramsey to write separate essays about working together, and asked us not to look at each other’s until after they were submitted: What It’s Like to Win a Pulitzer With a Family Member

NYT: Father-Son Duo in Alabama Wins Pulitzer, Bucking Headwinds in Local News

NPR: Meet the father-son journalists from Alabama who won a Pulitzer and changed laws

Morning Joe: Pulitzer awarded to reporters for exposing police corruption in Alabama town

In 2023 he was named inaugural Writer in Residence at Boston University. Archibald in 2021 wrote and co-hosted the national Murrow Award-winning podcast "Unjustifiable," the story of a Black woman killed by Birmingham police in 1979, and how it changed her city.

Archibald has written several plays, including one called “Pink Clouds,” about confusion over life and death in Alabama. It was featured at Human Rights Week at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theater in 2022. You can see a tidbit of that here, from a 2021 Harvard Playwright’s Fest reading. He is working to develop the play for a debut in the South.