Might that be for this reason, noted by The Conversation at the bottom?
In Vucci’s photograph, we are given the illusion that this photograph captures “the moment” or “a shot”. Yet it doesn’t capture the moment of the shooting, but its immediate aftermath. The photograph captures Trump’s media acuity and swift, responsive performance to the attempted assassination, standing to rise with his fist in the air.
In a post-truth world, there has been a pervasive concern about knowing the truth. While that extends beyond photographic representation, photography and visual representation play a considerable part.
It made Trump look like the hero we know him to be, the decisive, swift-acting, self-sacrificing leader that voters had been looking for. The picture turned up on tshirts, coffee mugs, stickers and posters, signaling how much the public was moved by it. Of course he won the election.
Some must have blamed this photo for it. But it was hardly propaganda — it was the work of an experienced photographer able to act with split-second instincts in a dangerous situation with events still unfolding. What’s more Vucci was hardly buddies with Trump. In March, he testified against the White House exclusion of AP from the photo press pool over the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ being renamed the ‘Gulf of America.’
Given Vucci’s photos, it seems kind of counterintuitive for the White House to exclude Vucci over a dispute like that, but the Pulitzer board didn’t notice.
But not entirely unexpected:
Or to put it another way:
