“Chilling” “Shocking” “Disturbing” “Mysterious”
Those are the kind of words you expect to see in an advertisement for a B-grade thriller movie. They’re not the kind of words you expect to see in a prestigious awards citation. But they are just some of the descriptions of the recent winners of the duPont-Columbia Awards “honoring the best of journalism.”
How about these… courageous… innovative… relevant… insightful… extraordinary… compelling… revealing. Much better. Even better are these… unflinching expose… beautifully crafted… entertaining and disturbing… beautifully crafted… as dramatic as an action movie.
Altogether they describe a journalism that comes in several different forms but with one overriding mission — “excellence in reporting and commitment to the highest journalistic ideals.”
Originally created in 1940 by Jessie Ball duPont to honor of her late husband Alfred I. duPont, the awards were for radio reporting. In 1950, the awards began honring the “burgeoning medium of television.” Then in 2010, online work was recognized, followed by podcasts. There were 16 winners and 13 finalists recognized in this year’s awards out of the hundreds of submissions.
Two of the Winners were podcasts: Audible for its investigation of a young Black woman whose skeleton was found years after she went missing in 2004. The report examined why so many Black women like her go missing every year. Gimlet Media in cooperation with Spotify produced a series of reports that started with one reporter trying to untangle her own family mystery but which evolved into a ‘condemnation’ of abuse in Canadia’s residential school system.
Two podcasts were Finalists as well: Pineapple Street Studios whose Dan Taberski and team took an ‘insightful’ examination of 9/11 and in the process created a meditation on history, along with Slate which ‘constructed a nuanced account” of the riots in Los Angeles.
As further evidence of the changing media landscape, The Washington Post won a duPont which focuses on “the very best in audio and video reporting” for its report, A Post-Roe America: Continuing Coverage of Abortion. As you would expect, national news operations dominated, but local news operations produced some equally powerful pieces.
Five of the 16 winners were local television news operations:
1. KARE-TV, Minneapolis, for The GAP which looked at violent criminals with severe mental illness who end up on the streets after being judged incompetent to stand trial.
2. WBRZ-TV, Baton Rouge, and Chris Nakamoto for Hidden Evidence which found a pattern of deception in the Louisiana State Police in an investigation into the death of an unarmed Black man in police custody.
3. KXAS-TV, Dallas/ Ft. Worth and Scott Friedman, for Paper Tag Nation which uncovered an underworld of criminal activity in what would seem to be an obscure topic — paper license plates.
4. WTVF-TV, Nashville, and Phil Williams, for Revealed, an investigation into the relationships between politicians and lobbyists.
5. WXIA-TV, Atlanta, and Rebecca Lindstrom, for Keeping, an investigation into a special needs child who was mysteriously abandoned in the middle of the night in an emergency room.
Five of the 13 Finalists were local television news operations:
1. CBS, Miami, and Jim DeFede, for Bonded by Tragedy, 30 Days in Surfside.
2. WFBB-TV, Baltimore, and Chris Pabst for Failure Factory, “ghost students.”
3. WMAQ=TV/ NBC Chicago and Phil Rogers for Left for Dead: Hit, Run, and Ignored.
4. KSDK-TV, St. Louis, for Asian Hate Crimes produced with members of the Asian American Journalists’ Association.
5. KING-5 News, Seattle, with Chris Ingalls and Taylor Mirfendereski, for After Hours, Fostering Children
The announcement of the awards comes coincidentally as Gallup and the Knight Foundation release the latest survey showing public trust in the news media is at near record lows. Much of the distrust comes from the Republican side of the political world, according to the report. Part of the reason for that may be Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media as “the enemy of the people.” Not to be too trite, but these reports show that the news media is actually “the friend of the people.”
