The 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards
Deeply Reported, Well Told.
In a special ceremony hosted by 60 Minutes Correspondent Bill Whitaker and NPR Morning Edition Host Steve Inskeep, the duPont-Columbia University Awards announced 16 Silver Baton winners.
The duPont Jury selected the very best in audio and video reporting from 30 finalists.
The ceremony was held at the Low Library at Columbia University in New York City.
The 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards Winners
Click any image to view an excerpt from that winner.
40 Acres and a Lie
Reveal, The Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones & PRX
This three-part audio investigation analyzed almost two million historical records to show how an often misunderstood government program gave more than 1,200 formerly enslaved people land titles, only to take the land back, fueling a wealth gap that remains today.
Battleground Texas
VICE News
When the Texas state legislature voted on 48 anti-trans bills that would deny them gender-affirming healthcare, filmmakers followed four trans kids and their families who went to Austin to try to stop them.
Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney
MTV Documentary Films, Take Flight Films & Firelight Films
Using testimony from the WPA’s oral histories, this short documentary explored the practice of forced reproduction in the antebellum South and spotlighted the agency of Mary Gaffney, an enslaved woman who took control of her body and fertility.
China: The Superpower of Seafood
The Outlaw Ocean Project
Using groundbreaking techniques, a team of journalists investigated China’s illegal fishing practices, human rights abuses and the use of state-sponsored forced labor, connecting the dots that lead from the country’s massive fishing industry to the food served on tables around the world.
Drained
KPRC-TV, Houston & Amy Davis
Houston's crumbling municipal water infrastructure led a dogged reporting team on a monthslong gumshoe journey through neighborhoods, government offices, worksites, and official records to expose, and then take down a scheme of high-level corruption.
Hate Comes to Main Street
WTVF-TV, NewsChannel 5 Nashville & Phil Williams
NewsChannel 5’s Chief Investigative Reporter Phil Williams unmasked the hate, political extremism and unhinged conspiracy theories infecting political life in Tennessee, and then became a target himself.
Maine Shooting: Missed Warnings
Scripps News
This investigation revealed how poor officer training in red flag laws - designed to prevent armed individuals from harming others - failed, despite numerous threats, warnings, and missed opportunities, with tragic consequences for 18 innocent civilians.
Murder in Boston
HBO | Max, Little Room Films & The Boston Globe (Docuseries)
The Boston Globe & HBO (Podcast)
A documentary series and a podcast examine how a high-profile Boston murder led to a racist rush to judgment that tore the city apart, before the truth was finally revealed.
Porcelain War
Songbird Studios & Imaginary Lane
Using exquisite animation, combat drones, and wry first person narrative, this evocative documentary is told by and about Ukrainian civilians called upon to defend their country who still cling to the beauty of their culture, art and nature.
The Space Race
National Geographic Documentary Films, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Alegria Films & Cortés Filmworks
This documentary recounted the compelling story of the first NASA Black astronauts who struggled to overcome racism to be part of the space program and redefine who has “the right stuff.”
The War in Gaza Coverage
NPR
NPR’s coverage of the war in Gaza exhibited ingenuity and sensitivity at great risk, getting behind the politics to show how the conflict has affected the men, women and children on all sides.
The Wild West of Education
ABC10 KXTV, Sacramento & Andie Judson
Reporter Andie Judson showed viewers how one man created a charter school empire filled with dubious spending and intimidation, and how the State of California fed the school hundreds of millions of dollars with almost no oversight.
The Wrong Man
KFOR, Oklahoma City & Ali Meyer
An innocent man was finally exonerated after more than 48 years, due in large part to the tenacity of one reporter who documented this injustice for two decades.
We Don’t Talk About Leonard
ProPublica & On the Media | WNYC Studios
In this podcast series, ProPublica and On the Media documented the rise of Leonard Leo from a suit-and-tie-wearing fourth grader to the most influential conservative who single-handedly transformed the American judiciary from top to bottom.
We Regret to Inform You
Reveal, The Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley & PRX
This podcast exposed how police officers are trained to delay death notifications to extract potentially damaging information from grieving families - and thereby reduce civil suit payouts - before informing them that their loved one has been killed by police.
You Are Not Alone: Fighting the Wolfpack
Netflix & Lucernam Films
Through key testimonies, this gripping documentary deconstructs a gang rape that took place during the 2016 San Fermín festival and led to Spain’s #MeToo movement.
The 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards Finalists
A Failure to Protect: A Domestic Violence Investigation
WBBM-TV, Chicago
An ongoing local investigative series took a heart-wrenching look at the scourge of domestic violence, exposing how despite victims’ best efforts to report their assailants, the system still fails and ultimately relies on women to defend themselves.
A Revolution on Canvas
HBO | Max & Partner Pictures
Artist Nicky Nodjoumi’s daughter tells his larger-than-life story in a documentary that takes viewers from the drama of the Iranian revolution to the trauma it inflicted on a family of artists, all illustrated by Nodjoumi's gorgeous and provocative work.
Democracy on Trial
FRONTLINE (PBS)
Interweaving testimony and video from the January 6 committee hearing with chilling archive and insightful interviews, FRONTLINE delivers a searing and comprehensive report on the roots of the criminal cases against Donald Trump stemming from his 2020 election loss.
Flint: City in Contempt
Scripps News
Ten years after the toxic water contamination scandal, reporters found hundreds of Flint homes still connected to dangerous lead pipes, despite $100 million in cleanup costs, and the city still can't finish the job.
Nazi Town, USA
GBH American Experience | PBS & Pangloss Films
This deeply researched documentary offered a new and frightening view inside America's home-grown fascist movement in the 1930s, and especially the nationwide network of youth summer camps that were intended to plant Nazi ideology firmly in the American mainstream.
Our Planet: Latinos and Climate Change
Telemundo Station Group
Telemundo’s reporters and meteorologists traveled across Puerto Rico. Mexico, the US mainland and Alaska to find out from Latinos on the frontlines of climate change how it directly impacts the Latino community, and highlight the actions audiences should take now.
‘Our Refinery Is On Fire’: Two Brothers and a Deadly Explosion
The Wall Street Journal & Spotify
This gripping audio investigation scrutinized an explosion at a refinery, the warnings that were ignored, woven through the lives and last minutes of two brothers who were killed.
Putin vs. the Press
FRONTLINE (PBS) & Channel 4
With unprecedented access, FRONTLINE producers followed an embattled Russian editor who opted to stay in Moscow and fight to preserve his newspaper as his reporters were murdered, exiled, and targeted by the state.
Supplying a High
WVUE FOX 8 New Orleans & Rob Krieger
When a Louisiana resident was paralyzed after incessant nitrous oxide use, WVUE-TV investigated and found the drug, intended for food preparation, was being widely marketed as a drug high.
The Incomparable Mr. Buckley
THIRTEEN American Masters | PBS & ARK Media
A riveting portrait of William F. Buckley, this documentary followed the personal and political journey of the man who created, then led the modern conservative movement as it grew into a powerful force that has transformed American politics.
To Kill a Tiger
Netflix & Notice Pictures Inc.
This compelling documentary tells the story of a humble farmer in India who embarked on a remarkable pursuit of justice after his teen daughter was gang raped, defying deep intolerance in their village.
Una Vida Nueva
KUSA-TV, Denver & Angeline McCall
As Denver struggled to respond to the sudden and massive influx of Venezuelan immigrants, in this documentary KUSA’s team followed families as they navigated an ever changing bureaucracy in search of stability, safety and opportunity for their children.
Visual Evidence Shows Israel Dropped 2,000-Pound Bombs Where It Ordered Gaza’s Civilians to Move for Safety
The New York Times
This painstaking New York Times forensic investigation confirmed Israel's use of 2000-pound bombs in areas of South Gaza where civilians were told to seek shelter, cutting to the core of an ongoing human tragedy.
Yousef Coverage
This American Life
Through a series of expansive and gut-wrenching phone conversations with producer Chana Joffe Walt, listeners learned of the struggles of Yousef Hamash to keep his family safe from Israeli bombs, and experienced first-hand how life has turned upside down for people in Gaza.