On Assignment - From the duPont-Columbia Awards

For our Summer Series, we’re catching up with this past year’s 75th Anniversary duPont winners. In this episode, Abi and Lisa speak to Daniel Zwerdling, NPR journalist extraordinaire, who has spent years reporting on veterans’ rights. We hear about how journalism is a lot like studying Psychology, his best interview techniques, and how he balances day-to-day stories with the longer investigations...

Director Ezra Edelman had no desire to rehash the OJ Simpson story. Here's why he made an 8-hour film about it. A conversation with Edelman on his 2017 Oscar and duPont-Columbia Awards winning film OJ: Made in America. Edelman spoke with Professor Betsy West after a screening of part one of the film at Columbia Journalism School's Film Fridays.

An interview with independent filmmaker Nanfu Wang about her feature debut Hooligan Sparrow, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016. The film follows Chinese dissident Ye Haiyan, more widely known as “Hooligan Sparrow." Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment and imprisonment during the course of fil...

Correspondent (and Columbia Journalism School professor) Dr. Jelani Cobb embedded himself in the Newark Police Department’s gang unit in the Frontline documentary Policing the Police, to get a first-hand look at the issue, as the debate about race, policing and civil rights continues to unfold in the United States. In this episode, Dr. Cobb and producer James Jacoby take us behind the scenes. Also...

A conversation with Academy award-winning director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy about her documentary "A Girl in the River," which tells the story of Saba, a Pakistani woman who survives an attempted honor killing at the hands of her father and uncle. The story takes an unexpected turn when she chooses to forgive the perpetrators. “A Girl in the River” won a duPont-Columbia Award in 2017 and an Oscar for...

This year’s duPont-Columbia Awards celebrated our 75th anniversary in a room packed with journalism greats like NBC News’ Lester Holt, CBS News’ Jane Pauley, This American Life’s Ira Glass, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Bill Moyers, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and so many others. Holt kicked off the evening by addressing the current anti-media climate head-on. Throughout the ceremony, award winners and h...

Go behind the scenes with two of the minds behind the remarkable documentary, Life, Animated. Pulitzer Prize winner and J-School grad Ron Suskind and Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams tell the real-life story of how Ron’s autistic son, Owen Suskind, reconnected with the world around him through classic Disney animated films, like The Lion King and The Little Mermaid. Life, Animated tells...

The final installment of our “Women We Love” series features Nikole Hannah-Jones— investigative reporter for the New York Times Magazine, known for her extensive coverage of racial justice and civil rights for outlets including ProPublica, The Atlantic and Essence Magazine. She’s won many awards, including the 2012 Columbia Journalism School Tobenkin Award for distinguished coverage of racial or r...

The third installment of our “Women We Love” series features Kelly McEvers—co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered and veteran conflict reporter. McEvers shares her experiences covering the Arab Spring, the war in Iraq and more recently, back home reporting for her podcast Embedded. Listen to the episode, then check out McEvers' poignant self-reflective radio documentary on why reporters, herself i...

The second installment of our “Women We Love” series features Monica Alba—embed journalist at NBC News, Columbia Journalism School alum and former duPont Fellow. In the episode, Alba shares some behind-the-scenes insight into what life is like on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton. She’s been part of Clinton’s press corps for more than a year, and she stole an hour away to return to the J Sch...

In episode 2 we interrupt our Women We Love series for a breaking story - a conversation with New York Magazine's Gabriel Sherman, who literally wrote the book on the Roger Ailes/Fox News story, and has led the pack on it since. His latest is a cover story detailing the recent developments regarding the sexual allegations directed at Ailes, with new revelations. Professor Bill Grueskin talks to Sh...

On Assignment's season two premiere is the first episode in a series called, Women We Love. These episodes will feature great conversations with women who are out in the field setting an example for our students with their outstanding reporting. All have a special connection to our Columbia J-School Prizes Department. Our first episode features filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, whose film Cameraperson, w...

The final episode of our mini season features three time duPont-Columbia winner WVUE Chief Investigative Reporter, Lee Zurik. Lee demands unprecedented accountability from government officials, private citizens and corporations in New Orleans. Listen in on a conversation between Lee and Lisa at the recent Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) annual conference, where he talks about one of the...

NPR Congressional Correspondent Ailsa Chang joins Abi for a conversation on her transition from law to journalism and being open to a career’s unexpected turns. Ailsa won a duPont Award in 2012 for her two-part investigative series on allegations of illegal searches and unlawful marijuana arrests by the New York City Police Department.

We kick off On Assignment’s Summer Mini Series with CBS News 60 Minutes producer and duPont winner, Nicole Young. In this episode, Nicole talks about the power of the follow-up, and how one unplanned question led to the best moment in Hard Times, a story about homelessness in Florida.

Our duPont fellows, Erika Glass and Laura Brickman, bring you an outtake from our conversation with the J school's Daniel Alarcón, who moderated our episode with the producers of Serial.

On Assignment’s season finale features accomplished filmmaker and the founder of Columbia Journalism School’s Documentary Program June Cross. She took the stage at a recent Film Friday screening with producer Lisa Desai to discuss their latest film - Wilhemina’s War, available on PBS until June 1st, then for sale online at Women Make Movies. In this podcast, June walks our audience through the fil...

Listen in on a conversation with the journalists behind the worldwide phenomenon Serial: Host and Executive Producer Sarah Koenig, Executive Producer Julie Snyder and Producer Dana Chivvis. Serial won a 2016 duPont-Columbia Award, and has been downloaded over 200 million times.

In this episode, Spotlight comes to the J-School. Meet the Boston Globe reporters who unveiled a major sexual abuse scandal within the ranks of the Catholic Church. Editor Walter “Robby” Robinson and reporter Sacha Pfieffer discuss taking on the highest of power, how their Pulitzer Prize-winning stories inspired the film Spotlight - the big winner at this year’s Academy Awards, and what it felt li...

What would it be like if the Nazis were still in power after the holocaust? Towns all over Indonesia experience this every day. Adi Rukun, an Indonesian optometrist, sets out to confront the men responsible for murdering his brother - The Look of Silence tells his story. The film’s director, Joshua Oppenheimer talks about what happens when the perpetrators of a genocide go unpunished. The Look of...

What’s it like to take on one of the most powerful institutions in the country? Filmmaker Alex Gibney talks to Professor Betsy West about the making of his controversial, duPont-winning film Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. He discusses the legal risks associated with taking on the Church of Scientology and the psychological hold the church has on its members.

New York Times' Paris Bureau Chief Alissa J. Rubin talks to former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson about covering war-torn countries, the helicopter crash that left her severely injured and reporting on the Paris terror attacks.

Coming soon – a chance to listen in on powerful conversations with some of the most influential journalists of today. Upcoming episodes feature the likes of Alissa J. Rubin, Jill Abramson, Joshua Oppenheimer and Alex Gibney. We're excited to share these with you!