Below are the winners of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize by category.

Journalism awards

• Public Service:
  • Anchorage Daily News, for reporting about the high incidence of alcoholism and suicide among native Alaskans in a series that focused attention on their despair and resulted in various reforms.^[1]
• General News Reporting:
  • Staff of Louisville Courier-Journal, for its exemplary initial coverage of a bus crash that claimed 27 lives and its subsequent thorough and effective examination of the causes and implications of the tragedy.
• Investigative Reporting:
  • Bill Dedman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for his investigation of the racial discrimination practiced by lending institutions in Atlanta, reporting which led to significant reforms in those policies.
• Explanatory Journalism:
  • David Hanners, reporter, William Snyder, photographer, and Karen Blessen, artist of The Dallas Morning News, for their special report on a 1985 airplane crash, the follow-up investigation, and the implications for air safety.^[2]
• Specialized Reporting:
  • Edward Humes of the Orange County Register, for his in-depth reporting on the military establishment in Southern California.
• National Reporting:
  • Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele of The Philadelphia Inquirer, for their 15-month investigation of rifle shot provisions in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a series that aroused such widespread public indignation that Congress subsequently rejected proposals giving special tax breaks to many politically connected individuals and businesses.
• International Reporting:
  • Bill Keller of The New York Times, for resourceful and detailed coverage of events in the U.S.S.R.
• International Reporting:
  • Glenn Frankel of The Washington Post, for sensitive and balanced reporting from Israel and the Middle East.
• Feature Writing:
  • David Zucchino of The Philadelphia Inquirer, for his richly compelling series, Being Black in South Africa.^[3]
• Commentary:
  • Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune, for his provocative columns on local and national affairs.^[4]
• Criticism:
  • Michael Skube of the News & Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina, for his writing about books and other literary topics.
• Editorial Writing:
  • Lois Wille of the Chicago Tribune, for her editorials on a variety of local issues.
• Editorial Cartooning:
  • Jack Higgins of the Chicago Sun-Times.
• Spot News Photography:
  • Ron Olshwanger, a freelance photographer, for a picture published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of a firefighter giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a child pulled from a burning building.
• Feature Photography:
  • Manny Crisostomo of the Detroit Free Press, for his series of photographs depicting student life at Southwestern High School in Detroit.

Letters, Drama and Music Awards

• Fiction:
  • Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Drama:
  • The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein (Fireside Theatre)
• History:
  • Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson (Oxford University Press)
• History:
  • Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster)
• Biography or Autobiography:
  • Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Poetry:
  • New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
• General Non-fiction:
  • A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan (Random House)
• Music:
  • Whispers Out of Time by Roger Reynolds (C. F. Peters)
    premiered on December 11, 1988, at Buckley Recital Hall, Amherst College, Massachusetts.