The 2023 duPont-Columbia Awards
Honoring the Best of Journalism
Announcing the 2023 Finalists
See our News and Updates for the full press release. Learn who will win at the 2023 Awards Ceremony - details to be announced.
60 Minutes: National Security -
Cyber Tech Reporting
CBS News
In four related stories, this impressive series documented in chilling terms the clear and present danger of ongoing cyber attacks, primarily by Russia, to this country's infrastructure and national security.
60 Minutes: Targeting Americans
CBS News
This three-part investigation clearly laid out how an unknown foreign adversary targeted the best and brightest intelligence officers with high powered microwave weapons, both while posted in U.S. embassies abroad and even on the grounds of the White House.
9/12
Pineapple Street Studios
Dan Taberski and his podcast team created a series of fresh and insightful ways to look at the most reported event of our time, 9/11, and in the end created a meditation on how history is made and what we choose to remember.
After Hours: Fostering Chaos
KING 5 News Seattle & Chris Ingalls/Taylor Mirfendereski
KING 5’s unflinching exposé about the mistreatment of foster children in the Seattle area by the very agency designed to protect them prompted a state probe that led to immediate changes to help ensure the safety of vulnerable children.
Arctic Sinkholes
PBS | GBH | NOVA
This episode of NOVA explored a recently discovered geological phenomenon with dramatic implications for climate change: new sinkholes are appearing across the Arctic, releasing previously unknown levels of methane into the atmosphere.
Attica
SHOWTIME
Hunting down hundreds of hours of archival and closed-circuit footage, and interviewing dozens of survivors on both sides of the hostage crisis, director Stanley Nelson gives the definitive documentary account of the 1971 Attica prison riot.
Bonded By Tragedy: 30 Days In Surfside
CBS Miami & Jim DeFede
A compelling documentary about the tragic Surfside collapse featured tremendous access to — and candor from — the leaders that managed this daunting search process, all interwoven with the families’ stories.
EP 758 - Talking While Black
This American Life
Two years after the racial protests of 2020, this audio report traced the story of Black Americans unexpectedly caught up in the backlash against #BlackLivesMatter, including a Michigan teen shockingly sold by her white classmates in a virtual slave auction.
Failure Factory
WBFF-TV Baltimore & Chris Papst
Through a series of investigative reports, Chris Papst uncovered numbing neglect and corruption in the Baltimore Public School system, including an examination of "ghost students," absent but still on school rolls and costing taxpayers millions.
The Fall of Afghanistan
PBS NewsHour & Jane Ferguson
Jane Ferguson’s in-depth and courageous coverage tracked the fate of Afghanistan in the months leading up to the American troop withdrawal and the immediate impact as the Taliban regained control.
Finding Tamika
Audible
Tamika Huston went missing in 2004, and pieces of her skeleton were found years later. Her life and senseless death are explored in this innovative podcast series that asks why so many Black women like her go missing each year.
The First Wave
National Geographic
With remarkable access, “The First Wave” team shot over 1,000 hours of footage to make this masterful verité documentary inside a Queens, NY hospital hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.
KARE 11 Investigates - The GAP: Failure to Treat, Failure to Protect
KARE 11 Minneapolis/St. Paul & A.J. Lagoe
In this hour-long special report, A. J. Lagoe & producer Brandon Stahl followed the trail of violent criminals with severe mental illness, who end up back on the streets after they are judged incompetent to stand trial.
The Janes
Warner Brothers Discovery | HBO
This film about a group of women who banded together, publicized their illegal services, and ran a safe, affordable underground abortion operation in Chicago in the late 1960’s is all too relevant in today's post-Roe United States.
#Keeping
WXIA-TV Atlanta & Rebecca Lindstrom
A special needs child was mysteriously abandoned in an emergency room in the middle of the night. That single incident resulted in a profoundly insightful series, fueled by a reporter’s determination to surface a disturbing flaw in Georgia’s social safety net.
Leave No Trace:
A Hidden History of The Boy Scouts
ABC News Studios | Hulu
This documentary’s scathing indictment of the Boy Scouts exposed the deliberate protection of pedophile scoutmasters within its ranks and the damage done to thousands of boys.
Left for Dead: Hit, Run, and Ignored
NBC Chicago WMAQ-TV & Phil Rogers
This investigative series revealed the Chicago police department’s shocking neglect as thousands of hit-and-run drivers – whose actions caused serious injury and even death – were never even questioned or investigated, let alone arrested.
Missing in Brooks County
PBS | Independent Lens
With human perspectives often missed in immigration coverage, this beautifully crafted documentary offered a portrait of an ongoing crisis on the U.S./Mexico border that has cost 20,000 lives since 1994.
MURDER - LIES - HIDDEN EVIDENCE: Holding Louisiana State Police accountable
WBRZ-TV Baton Rouge & Chris Nakamoto
Following a tip, WBRZ’s investigative team obtained internal emails and leaked video of the death of an unarmed Black man in police custody and exposed a pattern of deception at the highest levels of the Louisiana State Police.
Navalny
CNN Films
With an extraordinary window into the complicated life and attempted assassination of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, this compelling documentary was there as his team worked to identify and expose the members of the secret Russian intelligence team that shadowed and poisoned him.
The Neutral Ground
PBS | POV | American Documentary
Comedian-turned-director CJ Hunt took us on a both entertaining and disturbing journey into the fight over the removal of Confederate monuments, showing us how the losers of the Civil War rewrote history and kept us fighting to this day.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates: Revealed
WTVF-TV Nashville & Phil Williams
This in-depth investigative series on the inner workings of the Tennessee Legislature followed the money and the relationships between politicians and lobbyists that actually drive the legislative agenda.
Paper Tag Nation
KXAS-TV NBC Dallas/Ft. Worth & Scott Friedman
This remarkable series of investigative reports took an obscure topic - paper license plates - and uncovered an entire underworld of criminal activity, proving that public interest journalism can be as dramatic as an action movie.
A Post-Roe America: Continuing Coverage of Abortion
The Washington Post: Post Reports
Caroline Kitchener’s deep reporting in the run up to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade provided context and valuable insight into the layers of ambiguity many Americans feel.
RACE: Listen. Learn. Live. AAPI
KSDK St. Louis
As hate crimes against Asians increased nationally, members of the Asian American Journalists Association at KSDK St. Louis gathered seven subjects together and produced a series of packages aimed at telling their history and lived experiences.
Slow Burn: The L.A. Riots
Slate Podcasts
This podcast series on a seminal moment in American history constructed a nuanced account - within the context of race and the law - of how it all happened, and how the seeds were sown well before Rodney King was beaten, sparking the 1992 uprising.
Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's
Gimlet Media | Spotify
This intimate yet expansive podcast series began as one reporter’s journey to untangle her own family mystery and ended as a revealing condemnation of abuse in Canada’s residential school system and its painful legacy of multi-generational damage.
Through Our Eyes: Homefront
HBO Max | Catalyst Films | Shine Global
This short documentary film wove the stories of three children of veteran families as they coped with the emotional impact of having a wounded parent, and navigated the unique challenges of both visible and invisible injuries sustained during military service.
Ukraine Coverage
CNN Worldwide
From the moment the first shots were fired in Ukraine, CNN’s reach was sweeping and in-depth, from live breaking coverage on the frontlines, to following millions of refugees as they fled across Europe, and witnessing the everyday lives of Ukrainians months after the initial invasion.
War in Ukraine
PBS NewsHour
With empathy and context, a team of courageous reporters and producers fanned out across Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, and Russia itself to report on the huge impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.