2022 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award Winners Announced Tonight

NEW YORK, Feb. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbia Journalism School announced the 16 winners of the 2022 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards during a special virtual presentation highlighting outstanding reporting in the public interest. Hosted by CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Judy Woodruff, Anchor and Managing Editor of PBS NewsHour, the hour-long special presentation was hosted on the Award's site, and is available to watch now.

The 2022 duPont-winning public service reporting appeared across platforms and featured ongoing critical coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6th attack on the Capitol, policing in America, and racial inequities, among other topics.

"This ceremony is happening as we head into year three of a global pandemic. With the evolving challenges we are all facing, it only serves as a reminder about how important our work as journalists really is to inform the public and hold the powerful accountable," said Gupta during the show's opening remarks.

Woodruff remarked, "We've continued to be tested in ways we never expected by this pandemic that has upended lives, touched every corner of human existence and forced us to reorder priorities and rethink the way we do our work. Despite it all, we continue to witness great reporting being done -- profound and consequential investigative work and storytelling that transports us to places that would otherwise have gone unseen. I've never been more proud to be a journalist than I am at the start of this new year."

PBS led the evening with four wins— Independent Lens won for its eight-part epic look into the first term of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. POV won for its powerful coverage of the Kenyan political activist Softie, and for its inspirational documentary Through the Night—while FRONTLINE, with NPR and Planet Money, won for Waste Land, an in-depth audio investigation into the oil industry and plastic recycling. CBS News and Norah O'Donnell were honored for intrepid reporting exposing sexual assault in the U.S. military. The New York Times won a baton for its powerfully chilling documentary film investigation into the January 6th Capitol insurrection.

The duPont-Columbia Awards recognized two streaming services this year — Apple TV and Amazon Studios, both first time winners. Apple TV, in partnership with Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions, won for The Line, a six-part audio documentary examining the moral ambiguities of modern warfare. Amazon Studios was honored for My Name is Pauli Murray, a visual portrait capturing the life of the non-binary Black lawyer and activist Pauli Murray directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West, who won a 2019 duPont for RBG. HBO Documentary Films won for Nanfu Wang's In the Same Breath, recounting the parallel misinformation campaigns of the Chinese and the U.S. leadership at the outset of the Coronavirus pandemic which led to the loss of lives globally.

Four local television stations, KNXV (ABC-15 Phoenix, AZ), KXTV (ABC-10 Sacramento, CA), KARE (NBC-11 Minneapolis, MN), and KNTV(NBC-11 Bay Area) won for fearless coverage exposing widespread housing inequities, government and corporate corruption in their communities. Two podcasts won prizes, including Blindspot: Tulsa Burning, a co-production of WNYC and The History Channel, and Stitcher Media's According to Need, a two-year investigation into the issue of homelessness in America. VICE News won for The Shockwave, an in-depth look at the 2020 Beirut port explosion, as recounted by the doctors and nurses who struggled to save lives that day at the city's oldest hospital.

"Under these extraordinary circumstances, with reporters working remotely due to covid-related risks and restrictions, the 2022 winning stories are especially deserving of the recognition a coveted duPont Silver Baton brings,'' said duPont Director Lisa R. Cohen.

Founded in 1942, the duPont-Columbia Awards uphold the highest standards in journalism by honoring winners annually, informing the public about those journalists' contributions, and supporting journalism education and innovation. The awards have honored, for 80 years, many of the most important stories of our time from the Civil Rights era and Vietnam to today's racial reckoning and local accountability reporting. Since 1968, the Awards have been administered by Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. A jury made up of industry leaders selected 30 finalists and 16 winners from a pool of entries from traditional national and local news outlets across the country as well as streaming and entertainment outlets that have recently embraced in-depth public service reporting.

The 2022 duPont-Columbia Jurors are: Mark Whitaker, (Jury Chair), Nina Alvarez, David Bauder, Andy Bowers, Ann Cooper, Pam Hogan, Lee Kamlet, Shelagh Leahy, and Geraldine Moriba.

Learn more about the 2022 duPont-Columbia Award winners here.

SOURCE Columbia Journalism School