Hosted by Bob Woodruff
Premieres on PBS beginning Jan. 15
Thirteen/WNET airtime Tuesday, Jan. 20 at 10 p.m.
2009 winners
Check local listings (PDF)
How we get the news is changing. Media partnerships, low-cost digital production, Internet news sites targeting younger audiences – all of these trends are part of the changing face of broadcast news. They are also all evident in the winners of this year’s Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.
Telling the Truth: The Best in Broadcast Journalism, which premieres on PBS stations beginning on Thursday, Jan. 15 (check local listings), showcases the outstanding reporting that won duPont Awards this year and offers a glimpse of this new, emerging media landscape. Hosted by Bob Woodruff, the program features excerpts from the 13 news reports that have earned Gold and Silver duPont Batons, as well as insightful interviews with many of the television and radio journalists who produced them.
Opening the program is the story behind a gripping combat report produced by ABC News Nightline and narrated by Brian Ross. Watch a video clip. The Other War is based on field reporting by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, who were on assignment for Vanity Fair in northeast Afghanistan, a front that until recently has received far less press attention than the war in Iraq. Over a period of 15 months, Junger and Hetherington returned to Afghanistan repeatedly for long tours embedded with an American platoon pursuing Taliban and Al Qaeda militants. Their video footage, shot in the remote Korengal Valley under the most dangerous circumstances, captures the intense day-to-day reality of waging this war – including extraordinary combat sequences. “It was the worst combat I’ve ever experienced, by far,” Junger tells Woodruff. “I feel like the combat footage we got was sort of emblematic of all combat. It was so intense. It was so up close.”
Another award-winning international report featured in the program was produced by Christof Putzel for Current TV, which broadcasts on the growing array of digital and satellite channels as well as streaming stories on the Web. Watch a video clip.
The Internet is also a source of story ideas for Current TV. Putzel explains that he decided to report on the rise of neo-Nazi skinhead groups in the former Soviet Union after noticing the viral proliferation of homemade videos showing skinheads beating up immigrants on streets of Russian cities. Putzel traveled to Moscow and talked his way into a neo-Nazi training camp. There, he asked some of the assembled skinheads about the videos and the beatings. In a chilling interview, one of the skinheads boasts, “The biggest pleasure of watching these videos is knowing that I’ve started this trend.”
The duPont jury also honored an independent documentary about AIDS in China, The Blood of Yingzhou District, which was presented by HBO and won an Oscar last year. Filmmakers Thomas Lennon and Ruby Yang spent over a year struggling to penetrate the wall of silence surrounding AIDS in rural China. The filmmakers finally got a break when they befriended Zhang Ying, a courageous woman who runs a charity to help AIDS orphans. With Zhang Ying as their intermediary, the team produced a lyrical and moving report revealing the human toll the epidemic is taking – as well as one boy’s startling recovery. Bob Woodruff tells Lennon, “This is one of the most emotional pieces I have seen.” The Blood of Yingzhou District has never been shown in China, but news of the documentary’s Oscar win was widespread. “It had a vivid life in the media in China,” Lennon says. “And I think it pushed ahead the agenda.”
This kind of long-form documentary journalism requires a serious commitment of resources. A CNN winner, God’s Warriors, also required a significant investment of time and production money to explore the religious beliefs of Islamic, Jewish and Christian fundamentalists. Christiane Amanpour, who reported this sweeping six-hour series from around the world, explains to Woodruff, “This is what CNN is good at. We have such reach. We have such ability to tap so many resources.”
Telling the Truth concludes with coverage produced by WFAA-TV in Dallas, the first local television station ever to receive a duPont Gold Baton. WFAA was honored for three multi-part investigative reports on corruption in high school athletics, negligence that resulted in a series of deadly explosions of gas pipelines, and large-scale loan fraud involving the US Export-Import Bank. Woodruff discusses the economics of this kind of investigation with the winning reporters, Byron Harris and Brett Shipp. “There is a lot of pressure now on these affiliates, the networks, not to spend as much money and have more profit. Do you think this is going to go away eventually?” Woodruff asks.
On that question, the jury is still out.
The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards honor overall excellence in broadcast journalism. Administered by Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, they are considered the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, also administered at the Journalism School. The winners of the 2009 duPont Awards will receive their Gold and Silver Batons in a ceremony at Columbia on Jan. 22.
Telling the Truth is produced by RAINmedia in association with the Journalism School and Thirteen/WNET, the PBS presenting station. The program is funded by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. Produced by Will Cohen and Martin Smith. Directed by Will Cohen and written by Martin Smith. Executive in Charge for Thirteen/WNET: Stephen Segaller.
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