Martha Mendoza (born August 16, 1966) is an Associated Press journalist whose reporting has helped free over 2,000 enslaved fishermen and prompted action by the U.S. Congress and the White House.
She earned her first Pulitzer Prize in the Investigative Reporting category in 2000 as part of a team of Associated Press (AP) journalists that uncovered the massacre of Korean civilians by U.S. soldiers at the No Gun Ri bridge during the Korean War. Her second Pulitzer in 2016, for reporting that revealed seafood widely available in U.S. stores was being processed by slave labor in Southeast Asia, was the AP’s first Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in its history. On September 21, 2020, Mendoza won an Emmy Award for her collaboration documentary “Kids Caught in the Crackdown” produced by Frontline and PBS.
Mendoza is currently an AP national reporter based in Northern California and a member of AP’s Global Investigative Team. She has specialized in reporting on human trafficking in Asia since 2015.
