On Assignment - From the duPont-Columbia Awards

Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht discuss their 2021 duPont Columbia Award-winning documentary Crip Camp. The directors of the film, which was also nominated for an Oscar, speak candidly about topics like disability representation in the media, the film's relationship to present-day grassroots movements, and what it was like to get edit notes from the Obamas. Visit our website: www.onassignmentpodca...

Radiolab's Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee join duPont-Columbia Awards Director Lisa R. Cohen to discuss how they reported "The Flag and the Fury" which won a 2021 duPont award. They explain how what started as an historical audio documentary turned into a breaking news story in the summer of 2020 and the ways they handled that change. Visit our website: www.onassignmentpodcast.com Visit the duPont a...

KSTP News Director, Kirk Varner discusses the difficulty of reporting on the murder of George Floyd and the protests that rocked Minneapolis throughout the summer of 2020. In this conversation with duPont Awards Director Lisa R. Cohen, Varner tells behind-the-scenes stories about split second newsroom decisions, like when a truck drove through protestors on live air. Visit our website: www.onassig...

David Ushery, discusses reporting on coronavirus last spring, as New York City became the epicenter of a pandemic. The WNBC team brought viewers vital life and death information about COVID, day after day, in real time. Their reporting won a 2021 duPont-Columbia award. In this conversation with duPont Awards Director, Lisa R. Cohen, Ushery recounts the uncertainty of the pandemic’s early days, his...

Nadine Ajaka, The Washington Post’s senior producer for visual forensics, talks about her team’s reconstruction of the crackdown on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square in Washington D.C which won a 2021 duPont-Columbia award. By analyzing visual evidence, Ajaka and her team meticulously recreated the moments leading up to Donald Trump’s infamous “bible photo-op” in front of St. John’s church....

In this conversation with duPont Awards Director, Lisa R. Cohen and Executive Director of Prizes, Abi Wright, Radiolab's Latif Nasser discusses his podcast "The Other Latif". Tune in as Nasser talks the challenges of reporting on Guantanamo Bay, reveals how he initially found this story via a tweet, and reflects on his own identity as a Muslim living in the United States.

In our latest episode, Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz discuss their duPont Award-winning podcast, Bag Man, which details the brazen wrongdoing of Richard Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro T. Agnew -- and why so many have forgotten about him altogether.

The New York Times’ Science and Health Reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr., was months ahead of the general public, as he foretold the disastrous effects of COVID-19 early last spring. The winner of the 2020 John Chancellor Excellence in Journalism award-winner has been informing audiences of The Times’ podcast The Daily, and he’s joined here by The Daily host Michael Barbaro in a recent J-School studen...

In our latest episode of On Assignment, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and duPont juror Mark Whitaker reflect on the lessons learned from Gates’ 2020 duPont-winning documentary series Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. The conversation is timely, as the nation reckons with the current fragile political climate, and the country’s legacy of slavery in the wake of the deaths of George Flo...

In this month’s On Assignment episode, listen to the 2018 duPont-Award winning filmmakers describe the tenacious reporting required to produce “Let it Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992.” Director John Ridley and ABC News Producers Jeanmarie Condon, Melia Patria and Fatima Curry revisit the newly relevant documentary about the decade preceding the Rodney King beating.

In this episode of On Assignment, CBS News 60 Minutes producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados go behind the scenes of their duPont-winning reports on the US-Mexico Border. They describe basement meetings, months of back-and-forth with government sources, and having a U.S. president criticize their reporting. They also talk about how they have adapted to producing television news remotely...

In this episode of On Assignment, we revisit a conversation with Kai Wright and Kaari Pitkin, creators of the award-winning podcast Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice. The WNYC series showed the human side of the web-like juvenile justice system by giving young people the chance to tell their stories in their own words.

In this episode of On Assignment, we revisit a conversation from 2016 between New Yorker Staff Writer and Columbia Journalism Professor Jelani Cobb, FRONTLINE Producer James Jacoby, and Columbia Journalism Professor Betsy West about Cobb and Jacoby’s documentary Policing the Police. The film examines the troubled Newark, New Jersey police department from the inside.

WKBW's Charlie Specht talks with Professor Nina Alvarez about a reporting journey that took many unexpected turns: from covert emails sent anonymously from inside the church, to parking lot meetings, from undercover recordings to Specht’s own conflicted personal ties as a devout Catholic.

In this episode of On Assignment, Clarissa Ward joins duPont Awards Director, Lisa R. Cohen for a conversation about how CNN managed to break story after story on Khashoggi’s disappearance; how she has handled challenging reporting situations, including trauma self-care; and the creative ways she has continued reporting on COVID-19.

Local reporters Joe Bruno and Michael Stolp of WSOC in Charlotte, North Carolina discuss their duPont Award winning reporting “Something Suspicious in District 9.”

Directors of the duPont winning documentary Love them First, Lindsey Seavert and Ben Garvin, talk with Director of the duPont-Columbia Awards, Lisa Cohen (Serving Life) about their film. The documentary, built on unprecedented year-long access, is an intimate portrait of a North Minnesota elementary school and its visionary principal. Seavert and Garvin describe the challenges of creating a featur...

Director Rachel Lears on her film following first time politicians like AOC, who went from barkeep to U.S. Congress.

Award-winning director Nanfu Wang talks to Professor Betsy West about Wang’s Sundance-winning, Oscar-shortlisted documentary One Child Nation.

Revisiting an early #MeToo moment - Kate Snow talks about her 2017 duPont Award winning interview with 27 of Bill Cosby’s accusers.

Revisit directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen, with executive producer Amy Entelis, as they talk about their blockbuster documentary RBG. Hear them tout the power of optimism and other helpful tips they learned while making their 2019 duPont award winning film. Moderated by professor June Cross.

Revisit Nikole Hannah-Jones, NYT Magazine writer and creator of the 1619 Project, in conversation with NBC News anchor Lester Holt about reporting on race and takeaways from her 2018 John Chancellor Award-winning reporting.

This American Life Host and Producer Ira Glass has taken home seven duPont silver batons for the radio documentary series since he created it in 1995. In our special 50th episode, find out what goes into the making of one of the most listened to radio shows - one that spawned a generation of podcasts. Bonus: Hear Ira’s sage advice from his speech to the Columbia Journalism School graduating class...

WNYC’s Kai Wright and Kaari Pitkin talk morality and ethics, especially with minors as subjects, for their rare view inside the tangled world of the U.S. juvenile justice system.

CNN’s Nima Elbagir on risking her life for the stories that must be told, and the real world challenges of being a journalist of color.