CNN and PBS NewsHour each won two prizes in the 2023 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Awards, an annual recognition of some of the best work in the realm of audio and video journalism. Other winners among a group of 16 included CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” “This American Life” and the Louisiana TV station WBRZ.
Sixteen honorees were awarded the coveted silver baton in a ceremony Monday evening. The Awards were given out in person for the first time in three years at Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library in a 90-minute commemoration that was co-hosted by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell and PBS NewsHour’s Amna Nawaz. The event can be viewed at http://www.DuPont/org/watch.
Founded in 1942, the duPont-Columbia Awards have been administered since 1968 by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. The pool of entries includes traditional national and local news outlets from across the country, as well as streaming and entertainment outlets that have recently
embraced in-depth public service reporting
“This has been such an extraordinary year of events, both in trouble spots abroad and
troubling stories at home, requiring reporters to span the world and dig deep locally,”
said duPont Director Lisa R. Cohen in a prepared statement. “We are humbled, as always, to honor these brave and dogged journalists.”
Both PBS NewsHour and CNN were honored for their coverage of the war in Ukraine. Each program also garnered a separate honor — NewsHour for its coverage of the fall of Afghanistan and CNN for the documentary film “Navalny,” a look into the complicated life and attempted assassination of the Russian opposition leader.
CBS News’ “60 Minutes” was honored for a four-part series on the danger of ongoing cyber attacks on U.S. assets,, primarily by Russia. The PBS series “Nova’ won an award for an exploration of new sinkholes appearing across the Arctic and releasing previously unknown levels of methane into the atmosphere. “This American Life” was honored for tracing the story of Black Americans unexpectedly caught up in the backlash against #BlackLivesMatter.
Some local news outlets were also cited. WBRZ in Baton Rouge, La., 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. WTVF in Nashville followed the money and relationships between politicians and lobbyists that affect the legislative agenda.
Audible and Gimlet Media were each awarded one duPont for podcasts. The former examined the death of Tamika Huston, a woman who had gone missing, while the latter revealed abuse in Canada’s residential school system.
Other honorees included HBO documentary Films; ABC News Studios; The Washington Post; KXAS of Dallas-Fort Worth; and WXIA of Atlanta.
