PBS and ABC News were among the top winners at the duPont-Columbia Awards, some of the top honors accorded each year to audio and video reporting done in the public interest.
The 15 award winners of 2024 were announced Thursday during a special ceremony. The awards have been administered since 1968 by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
PBS won three duPont-Columbia Awards: one for courageous reporting from Ukraine in “20 Days in Mariupol”; one from Afghanistan in “Afghanistan Undercover” — both in documentaries produced by FRONTLINE, and a thirdfor Ken Burns’ six-hour series “The U.S. and the Holocaust” (Florentine Films/WETA). Meanwhile, ABC News took home two awards — one for environmental reporting and one for ABC News Studios’ “Aftershock.”
A jury made up of industry veterans selected 30 finalists and 15 winners. The pool of entries included traditional national and local news outlets from across the country, as well as streaming and entertainment outlets.
Other award-winning investigations included “Caught on Camera, Traced by Phone: The Russian Military Unit That Killed Dozens in Bucha,” from The New York Times.
Two other longform documentaries were winners, including Brook Lapping’s “Putin vs the West”; and “Beyond Utopia” (Ideal Partners).
There were three award-winning podcasts: “Mother Country Radicals,” produced by Zayd Ayers Dohrn (Crooked Media); “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went so Wrong,” a six-part series by Education Reporter Emily Hanford (APM Reports) and “The 13th Step” from New Hampshire Public Radio and Reporter Lauren Chooljian.
Five local news outlets were 2024 duPont-Columbia Award winners. They are: KVUE TV & The Austin American-Statesman; KXAS-TV;KUSA 9NEWS Denver; New Hampshire Public Radio; and WANF-TV & InvestigateTV, an collaboration of Gray-owned television stations.
David Muir of ABC News and Audie Cornish of CNN hosted Thursday’s ceremony at the Low Memorial Library on Columbia University’s campus.