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Journalism Awards

Past duPont Award Winners

Excellence in broadcast journalism

2009 duPont Winners

  • WFAA-TV, Dallas, Byron Harris & Brett Shipp: Money for Nothing, A Passing Offense, The Buried and the Dead
  • ABC News, Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger & Brian Ross: Nightline, The Other War: Afghanistan
  • California Newsreel, San Francisco, & Vital Pictures, Boston: Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? on PBS
  • Chicago Public Radio, PRI, NPR, Alex Blumberg & Adam Davidson: This American Life: The Giant Pool of Money
  • CNN & Christiane Amanpour: God’s Warriors
  • Current TV & Christof Putzel: From Russia with Hate
  • HBO, Thomas Lennon & Ruby Yang: Cinemax's Reel Life: The Blood of Yingzhou District
  • NPR, All Things Considered, Melissa Block & Robert Siegel: Coverage of the Chengdu Earthquake
  • NPR & Laura Sullivan: All Things Considered: Sexual Abuse of Native American Women
  • Oregon Public Broadcasting: The Silent Invasion
  • Safari Media, ITVS, Chris Sheridan & Patty Kim: Independent Lens, Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story on PBS
  • WJLA-TV, Washington, DC, & Roberta Baskin: Drilling for Dollars: Children’s Dentistry Investigation
  • WTVT-TV, Tampa, & Doug Smit: Small Town Justice

    Read program descriptions of 2009 award-winning coverage
    Watch complete coverage of the 2009 award ceremony
    Watch host Katie Couric's remarks

    2008 duPont Winners

  • CBS News for 60 Minutes: The Mother of All Heists
  • Chicago Public Radio, Alix Spiegel & PRI for This American Life: Which One of These Is Not Like the Others?
  • Florentine Films/Hott Productions & WETA-TV, Washington, DC for Through Deaf Eyes on PBS
  • HBO, Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg for The Trials of Darryl Hunt
  • KHOU-TV, Houston for Rules of the Game
  • KMOV-TV, St. Louis for Left Behind: The Failure of East St. Louis Schools
  • KNOE-TV, Monroe, Louisiana for Names, Ranks and Serial Plunder: The National Guard and Katrina
  • MSNBC & Richard Engel for War Zone Diary
  • NBC News for Dateline: The Education of Ms. Groves
  • NPR & Daniel Zwerdling for Mental Anguish and the Military
  • Paladin Invision, London, & WETA, Washington, D.C. for Jihad: The Men and Ideas Behind Al Qaeda on PBS
  • WBBM-TV, Chicago for Fly At Your Own Risk
  • WFAA-TV, Dallas for Television Justice

    Read program descriptions of 2008 award-winning coverage

    2007 duPont Winners

    Chosen from a pool of 526 radio and television news entries that aired in the United States between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006, the 2007 duPont winners covered some of the most critical issues of that period including the Iraq War, the devastation of Katrina, the Arab-Israeli peace process, and the global AIDS crisis. Other award-winning foreign and local news stories covered a broad range of topics from the desperate lives of North Korean refugees, to poverty on Cape Cod, environmental pollution in Maryland, and a biography of Bob Dylan in the 60s.

    Public broadcasting, both television and radio, dominated the awards, garnering seven of the fourteen batons. Winners included programs of the PBS series FRONTLINE, AMERICAN MASTERS, and INDEPENDENT LENS as well as an independent production that premiered on PBS. A collaboration of four California public television stations won another award. NPR’s foreign desk and a series by public radio serving Cape Cod and The Islands were the only two winners among radio reports.


    2007 duPont Awards ceremony

    of 2007 award-winning coverage

    • AMERICAN MASTERS and WNET, New York, for No Direction Home: Bob Dylan on PBS
    • Brook Lapping Productions, London, for Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace on PBS
    • WGBH’s Cape and Islands NPR Stations for Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands
    • Discovery Times Channel, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and The New York Times for Nuclear Jihad: Can Terrorists Get the Bomb?
    FRONTLINE and WGBH, Boston,for The Age of AIDS on PBS
    • HBO, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill for Baghdad ER
    • ITVS, Lisa Sleeth and Jim Butterworth for INDEPENDENT LENS: Seoul Train
    on PBS
    NBC Nightly News and Dateline for Coverage of Hurricane Katrina
    • KCET, Los Angeles, KPBS, San Diego, KQED, San Francisco, KVIE, Sacramento, for California Connected: War Stories from Ward 7-D
    • NPR for Coverage of Iraq
    • WBAL-TV, Baltimore, for Dirty Secret
    • WLOX-TV, Biloxi, for Coverage of Hurricane Katrina
    • WRAL-TV, Raleigh, for Focal Point: Paper Thin Promise and Standards of Living
    • WWL-TV, New Orleans, for Coverage of Hurricane Katrina

    Read descriptions of award-winning coverage

    These journalists and their award-winning coverage were featured in the PBS documentary Telling the Truth: The Best in Broadcast Journalism, hosted by Christiane Amanpour, that premiered on PBS on January 22, 2007.

    2007 program, hosted by Christiane Amanpour

    2006 duPont Winners

    Selected from 628 submissions, the 13 award winners are.
    • ABC NEWS for Live Coverage of the Death of Pope John Paul II and the Election of Pope Benedict XVI
    • CNBC for The Age of Wal-Mart: Inside America's Most Powerful Company
    • CNN for Coverage of the Tsunami Disaster in South Asia
    FRONTLINE and WGBH, BOSTON, for Al Qaeda's New Front on PBS
    FRONTLINE, WGBH, BOSTON, and The New York Times for The Secret History of the Credit Card on PBS
    • HBO for Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel: The Sport of Sheikhs
    • North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, Chapel Hill, for North Carolina Voices: Understanding Poverty
    • PRI,WGBH, BOSTON, and BBC WORLD SERVICE for The World: The Global Race for Stem Cell Therapies
    • THE KITCHEN SISTERS, JAY ALLISON and NPR for Hidden Kitchens
    • THE SUNDANCE CHANNEL, DENIS PONCET, JEAN-XAVIER de LESTRADE and ALLYSON LUCHAK for The Staircase
    • WFTS-TV, TAMPA, for Crosstown Expressway Investigation
    • WJW, CLEVELAND, for School Bus Bloat
    • WPMI-TV, MOBILE, for For Lauren's Sake

    2005 duPont Winners

    The following were selected from 588 submissions.
    • ABC NEWS and PJ PRODUCTIONS for Jesus and Paul: The Word and the Witness
    • PBS FRONTLINE and WGBH-TV for Ghosts of Rwandaon PBS
    • ABC NEWS and PRIMETIME THURSDAY for The Nuclear Smuggling Project
    • DAVID APPLEBY and THE UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS for Hoxie: The First Stand on PBS
    • FRONTLINE and WGBH-TV for Truth, War and Consequences on PBS
    • MSNBC and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ULTIMATE EXPLORER for Liberia: American Dream?
    HBO/CINEMAX REEL LIFE, VICTORIA BRUCE and KARIN HAYES for The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt
    • LOUISIANA PUBLIC BROADCASTING for Louisiana: Currents of Change
    • MSNBC and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ULTIMATE EXPLORER for Liberia: American Dream?
    • NBC NEWS and DATELINE for A Pattern of Suspicion
    • NPR and RADIO DIARIES for Mandela: An Audio History
    • WFAA-TV, DALLAS for State of Denial
    • WBAP-AM, DALLAS for JFK 40
    • WCNC-TV, CHARLOTTE for Medicaid Dental Centers Investigation

    2005 Finalists
    The duPont Jury also announced four finalists for their exemplary broadcast journalism:

    • Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Tracy Droz Tragos for Be Good, Smile Pretty on PBS
    • MarketPlace and American Public Media for Spoils of War on public radio stations
    • NOVA, WGBH-TV and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. for Crash of Flight 111
    • WISH-TV, Indianapolis, for Will Your Vote Count?