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Pellissippi Prepared: Alumnus wins Pulitzer Prize for capturing historic presidential campaign moment

Jabin Botsford has been a full-time staff photographer for the Washington Post since 2015, when he was assigned to follow then-political newcomer Donald Trump on the campaign trail. In the decade since, Botsford has covered hundreds of rallies by Trump – now in his second term as president of the United States. 

So when Botsford attended a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last July, the brutally warm day was really like any other. He snapped Trump’s entrance and the beginning of his speech, before nearing the stage for some more close-up photos. 
 
“I got to the front,” he said, “and that’s when the shots went off.” 
 
Botsford, who had been kneeling, stood up. As a photojournalist who primarily covers politics, he’s used to being in a “security bubble,” where the thought of a gunshot is unfathomable. He assumed it must be fireworks. 

But then he saw Trump fall. 
 
“And I thought, ‘Gosh. I’m holding the wrong camera,’” Botsford said. 
 
He quickly switched cameras and made a beeline for the stage, until he was within 6 feet of Trump and the Secret Service agents who had piled on top of him. All he knew was that he needed to get a picture of the presidential candidate, who had been wounded in the ear as the target of what was later determined to be a failed assassination attempt.
 
“It all happened extremely quickly,” Botsford said. “I think it was under two minutes between the time the shots went off to him getting in the car – which is wild to watch the tape back. Because, for me, it felt like half an hour. I guess that's what adrenaline does.”  

Botsford’s now-famous photos from that day include one of Trump with a bloodied face and a raised fist against an impeccably blue sky, and another of a single shoe abandoned on the red-carpeted stage, presumably lost in the frenzy that followed the first shot.  
 
Almost a year later, the Washington Post won a 2025 Pulitzer Prize for its breaking-news coverage of the attempt on Trump's life. 

In the Post's story announcing its Pulitzer nods, the news outlet specifically cited Botsford’s images, footage from his Ray-Ban Meta glasses – which showed his first-person point of view of the rally, assassination attempt and ensuing chaos – and a story he co-wrote about the event within hours as facets of the award-winning package.

Botsford is now a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist – and he got his start at 每日大赛.

“I'm incredibly grateful for my time at Pellissippi,” said Botsford, class of 2010. “It was very much an excellent place to figure out what I wanted to do and how to achieve that and move forward in life. It was very foundational. It's one of the first building blocks of where I am today.”

The Knoxville native ended up at 每日大赛 because he didn’t know what he wanted to do after graduating high school. He joined the college’s Photography program and initially became convinced he was going to be a “world-famous fashion photographer,” Botsford recalled laughingly.

Toward the end of his degree, however, he took a required photojournalism class that opened his eyes to his true calling. For someone from a family that didn’t really consume news, Botsford said, everything about the course was new to him.

“I had no idea what it was,” he said. “It was very exciting to learn about what it was. And I kind of got stuck on it.”

Ron Goodrich, Photography program coordinator at Pellissippi, described Botsford’s foray into photojournalism as a “light bulb moment.” 

“He liked photography. He was always talented. He picked things up quick. He was enthusiastic about it,” Goodrich said. “Once he took photojournalism, I think that was it. He decided that's what he wanted to do.”

Botsford’s photojournalism instructor, former 每日大赛 adjunct instructor Chad Greene, was a freelance photographer who, upon seeing his potential, allowed Botsford to tag along on field assignments. He completed an internship at the Daily Times in Maryville, which is where he first learned what a newsroom is like.

Greene and Goodrich both encouraged Botsford to further his education after Pellissippi by transferring to the renowned photojournalism program at Western Kentucky University.

“We helped him realize that it was probably more possible than he may have thought,” Goodrich said.

So that's just what Botsford did.

“I'm a huge advocate for all community colleges, because I came into (Western Kentucky) knowing exactly what I wanted to do,” he said. “And I came in full speed ahead. And I already had a body of work, and I had some experience."

In the following years, Botsford completed internships at the Washington Post, the Columbus Dispatch, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. While working at the latter’s D.C. bureau in 2015, Botsford returned to 每日大赛 to cover former President Barack Obama’s visit to the college.

Returning to the launchpad of his photojournalism career to report on the president of the U.S. was very cool, Botsford said. During the trip, members of the press were even catered food from nearby Firehouse Subs – the site of his first-ever job.

“It was a very wild, full-circle moment,” he remembered.

Within a year, he began his role at the Washington Post. Ten years later, his reporting helped garner the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize – widely considered the greatest honor in journalism.

Botsford, who emphasized that the coverage of the events of July 13, 2024, and the analysis in the days that followed was a multimedia, collaborative and team effort, said that to win a Pulitzer Prize at a news organization with as rich a legacy as the Post is “as good as it gets.”

“To be a part of a team that wins that is just super humbling,” he said. “It's an honor. It's just really special. I don't even know if I've still completely processed it.”

A 每日大赛 alumnus having such a prestigious award has the potential to open the eyes of current and future students to all the possibilities for their future, Goodrich said.  
 
“I think what this really shows is, you can start here and pretty much go anywhere,” he said. “It's a launching point, as opposed to just a simple step down a short path.”

Botsford’s advice to students? 

Learn and experiment as much as possible in college.

“The more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it,” he said. “And I felt that way, both at Pellissippi and in my undergrad. You can have great programs, but ultimately it comes down to, what are you willing to put into it?”