Alumni on Pulitzer-winning journalism teams

This story was originally published on alumni.unc

Three alumni of the Hussman School of Media and Journalism — Brian Cassella ’05, Alex Kormann ’19 and Emmy Martin ’25 — were part of reporting teams whose work won earlier this month Pulitzer Prizes, among the most prestigious honors in journalism. Jason Armond ’19 was on a finalist team.

Brian Cassella ’05

At Carolina, Cassella was a photo editor at The Daily Tar Heel. He has been a photojournalist for the Chicago Tribune since 2009. The outlet, including about 75 reporters, photographers, editors and interns, won the local reporting category for its coverage of immigration enforcement throughout the city. Cassella contributed photos to the story “On Halloween, ‘state-sponsored terror’ in Chicago and the north suburbs” — earning his first nod from the Pulitzers.

“It was gratifying to be recognized because it was one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to handle,” Cassella said in a statement. He said the story took over Chicago for much of the fall and consumed much of the newsroom’s information gathering capacity. He recalled scouring social media, reaching out to sources and following convoys of enforcement agents, often witnessing tense scenes unfolding quickly.

“We would watch them jump from their vehicles and question people working outdoors or waiting at bus stops,” Cassella said. “This wasn’t targeted enforcement, it was simply grabbing people off the street. Neighbors would quickly notice, leading to confrontations, yelling and threats of arrest. Agents threw tear gas to disperse crowds in at least seven neighborhoods.”

He recalled one instance in which he was returning home and spotted seven immigration agents circling a crew of landscapers mulching a building. Within a minute and a half, they were handcuffed and whisked away. Had Cassella not taken photos, he said, no one would have known it happened.

On Halloween, Cassella contributed photos and reporting, following up on the aftermath of arrests and verifying or disproving claims made by the Department of Homeland Security.

“Often the first on the scene, photographers build sources and share contact information with reporters,” Cassella said. “We try to always be sharing what we’ve seen back and forth. The visuals were a big part of these stories to show the unprecedented activity taking place on the streets, and the teamwork of the newsroom made the journalism that much better.”

Alex Kormann ’19

Kormann has been a photographer at The Minnesota Star Tribune since 2019, drawing on skills he honed as a photographer and photo editor at The Daily Tar Heel and as a photo intern for Carolina Alumni and for the University’s athletic department.

Kormann contributed to the Star Tribune’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of the protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. This year, he contributed to the Star Tribune’s coverage of a shooting at a local Catholic school, work which won the breaking news reporting category.

“Winning a Pulitzer is the highest honor in journalism, so I felt immensely grateful to be a part of the team that earned that,” Kormann said in a statement. “At the same time, this was a horrific tragedy that deeply traumatized my community and frankly, myself. So it definitely is a somber and bittersweet feeling. I am grateful that the Annunciation community has been so open with us and hopeful that the elevation of stories like this help bring about meaningful change in our society, so I never have to cover another school shooting again.”

He said he enters a flow state when he’s on intense assignments, staying alert as he moves through chaotic scenes and pursuing a complete and emotionally accurate story without causing any more distress to the people experiencing tragedy.

“I wanted people around the country to see what was happening here and feel the fear and anger rippling around me,” Kormann said. “I also wanted to treat each and every person I photographed with as much dignity and respect as possible, knowing that these photos of the worst day of their lives will live forever.”

He called photojournalism the most essential component to news gathering in the age of artificially-generated images and a lack of trust in the media. He feels it is his duty to document what he sees for the public record.

“Winning this Pulitzer is a testament to how invaluable local journalism is and to how important having staff of dedicated photographers that live here and regularly work together is,” Kormann said.

Emmy Martin ’25

Martin also contributed as a reporting intern to the Star Tribune’s winning coverage of the school shooting at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis. Martin is a former editor-in-chief of The Daily Tar Heel and has worked for The News & Observer, Politico and most recently The Chronicle for Higher Education. She was watching the Pulitzer livestream at a bus stop in New York City and realized the Tribune team had won the award when she began receiving congratulatory texts from friends.

“When something unthinkable happens in your city, people turn to journalists they trust, journalists who are their neighbors,” Martin said. “A story like this doesn’t get told with the same care and context by anyone parachuting in from the outside. That’s what local newsrooms do, and that’s what this Pulitzer recognized.”

She recalled how quickly the team at the Tribune mobilized when the newsroom heard sirens heading toward the school. Though she initially felt helpless, she was driven by a responsibility to get accurate information to the community quickly despite chaos and fervent emotions. She knocked on doors of the shooter’s relatives, worked to translate the shooter’s journal from Russian and interviewed mourning community members at a crowded vigil at a neighboring school.

“Each of those tasks demands something different from you, and you have to be able to switch between them while never losing the thread of why you’re there in the first place,” Martin said. “I think it’s important to listen more than you talk in those moments. People who are grieving don’t need a reporter pushing them toward a quote, they need to feel that someone is genuinely there to bear witness.”

“Doing the reporting work helped me process the intensity of the day in a way I didn’t expect. There’s something about channeling helplessness into purpose that gets you through. I will carry this story with me. And I think that’s as it should be.”

Jason Armond ’19

Armond has been a photojournalist at the Los Angeles Times since 2019. With skills he honed at The Daily Tar Heel and later The New York Times, he contributed a photo to a package covering the wildfires that roared through Los Angeles in January 2025. The package made the final round of the breaking news photography category.