The 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards Honors Excellence in Journalism

The team behind NPR’s 2025 duPont-Columbia Award winning piece “The War in Gaza Coverage” poses with ceremony co-host Bill Whitaker (far left).

by Laine Immell, 2024-25 duPont Fellow

On January 22, 2025, Columbia Journalism School announced the 16 winners of the 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards during a special ceremony highlighting outstanding audio and video reporting in the public interest in broadcast, documentary and online.

Bill Whitaker, CBS News 60 Minutes Correspondent and Steve Inskeep, Host of NPR’s Morning Edition, presented the awards at the Low Memorial Library on Columbia University’s campus. The 90-minute duPont Awards ceremony, often referred to as the “Pulitzers of broadcast,” is available to watch at www.dupont.org.

Addressing the audience, Whitaker said, “As we used to say way back in the 1970’s, ‘Keep on keeping on.’ Like the reporters whose excellence we honor tonight, we have to keep digging, keep looking under rocks, keep shining light into the shadows, keep giving voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless. Keep reporting with honesty, integrity and facts. Our democracy requires it.”

Inskeep also addressed the current times. “Some media broadcast for people who already care, who already buy a narrative. In a divided country, and a competitive environment, we build an audience when we get the story across to people who do not care yet. Many people don’t trust the media. And fellow journalists, respectfully: That’s good! It might be better if more people were skeptical of certain things they’re told. But we need to meet that challenge. To prove what we say...and to keep returning to the story, day after day, with an open mind. With tonight’s awards, we recommit to our right to do our job – for as long as we’re allowed to do it.”

For the first time, three documentaries produced by streaming platforms won duPonts, indicating their commitment to quality, in-depth reporting. They are: HBO | Max, Little Room Films & The Boston Globe (Docuseries) The Boston Globe & HBO (Podcast) for “Murder in Boston”; MTV Documentary Films and Paramount + for “Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney”; and Netflix & Lucernam Films “You Are Not Alone: Fighting the Wolfpack.”

The topic of race in America remained at the forefront for this year’s honorees, with five Silver Batons awarded to journalists who re-examined the topic at various points in U.S. history – from the antebellum South to current-day examples of the racial divide in America. These duPont winners are: The Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, Reveal & PRX “40 Acres and a Lie”; National Geographic Documentary Films, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Alegria Films & Cortés Filmworks “The Space Race”; MTV Documentary Films and Paramount+ “Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney”; HBO | Max, Little Room Films and The Boston Globe “Murder in Boston”; and KFOR, Oklahoma City & Ali Meyer for “The Wrong Man.”

Three additional duPont Batons honored audio reporting: NPR won for its coverage of the war in Gaza, ProPublica & On the Media WNYC Studios’ podcast series “We Don’t Talk About Leonard” won an award, and “We Regret to Inform You”, co-produced with Reveal, and The Investigative Reporting Project at UC Berkeley, was a winner.

First time honorees included the non-profit journalism organization The Outlaw Ocean Project for its investigative series, “China: The Superpower of Seafood,” and Scripps News for its ongoing investigation “Maine Shootings: Missed Warnings.”

VICE News won a duPont for its online film “Battleground Texas,” and Songbird Studios & Imaginary Lane were honored for “Porcelain War” about the war in Ukraine.

The duPont-Columbia Awards have a longstanding commitment to outstanding reporting by local news outlets that cover important issues in their communities. This year, four local news outlets were 2025 duPont-Columbia Award winners. They are: WTVF-TV, NewsChannel 5 Nashville & Phil Williams, KFOR, Oklahoma City & Ali Meyer, KPRC-TV, Houston & Amy Davis and ABC10 KXTV, Sacramento & Andie Judson. This is the fifth duPont win for WTVF and the station’s Chief Investigative Reporter Phil Williams, who also received the John Chancellor Award from Columbia Journalism School in 2023.

“Local news reporters and their stations play critical roles in their communities, and they are increasingly at risk - for both their safety and their livelihoods,” said Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb. “Amid the rich mosaic of excellent reporting in the 2025 duPont honorees, we’re proud to support local journalism every year with these awards.”

For the full list of 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards winners and finalists, click here.