60 Minutes: National Security in the Information Age

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.

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.

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.

Coverage of the Fall of Afghanistan

and the War in Ukraine

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.

And, 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.

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.

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.

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 & HBO Max

 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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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 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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.