On Assignment Podcast: Recent Episodes
On Assignment
On Assignment brings you some of the best conversations from the Columbia Journalism School, produced and hosted by the school's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.
The duPont-Columbia Awards honor the best in audio-visual reporting across platforms including broadcast, documentary, local investigative, radio and interactive journalism. We started the On Assignment Podcast to go behind the scenes and bring you the conversations we were having with the leading journalists in the field, many of whom are also past duPont Award winners.
“Surviving Ohio State” is a 2026 duPont-Columbia Award-winning documentary that follows the heartbreaking testimonies of former Ohio State University student athletes who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their team doctor Richard Strauss. More than 30 years later, they are bravely sharing their stories as they continue to fight for accountability from Ohio State. In this episode, Director Eva Orner takes duPont Awards Director Lisa R Cohen and J-School students behind-the-scenes after screening the film, to reveal what doubts she overcame to make the film; how she built trust with the fragile survivors; and practical advice she has for emerging documentary filmmakers.You can stream “Surviving Ohio State” on HBO Max. Do you have deeply reported, original audio, or video journalism you’d like to submit? We are now accepting entries for the 2027 awards season. Apply before our deadline of July 1, 2026. For more information and links to submit, go to our website dupont.org.
Author and journalist Alice Driver remembers her first time meeting people from other countries as a child in rural Arkansas – they were all workers at meatpacking facilities. Her book, “Life and Death of The American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company,” which won the $25,000 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize, focuses on the struggles those immigrant workers face today – specifically those employed by Tyson, America’s largest meatpacking company. In this episode, Alice Driver joins the J School Prizes Department’s Abi Wright and Lisa Cohen to talk about her award-winning book, the impact it’s had on migrant workers and the meat industry, and how young journalists can keep their momentum going if they decide to tackle longform projects of their own. She urges Read more about “Life and Death of The American Worker,” and Driver’s other books, here. Do you, or someone you know, have a non-fiction work-in-progress that is currently under a book contract? If so, enter to win the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize - or other Lukas Book Prizes - before the Dec. 4, 2025 deadline. Go to https://journalism.columbia.edu/lukas for more information and to enter.
Phil Williams, titan of local journalism, five-time duPont-Columbia Award winner and dubbed “Nashville’s Nosiest Bitch” - by satirist John Oliver - talks about his most recent duPont Award-winning investigation, Hate Comes to Main Street. In the series, Williams squares off with local right-wing politicians and white supremacists to expose how conspiracy theories are shaping political life in Tennessee.
“I don't want to have my chain yanked. I do not want to report on things in the news because a bad faith actor is driving me to do that. I do not play requests.’” – Rachel Maddow2020 duPont-Columbia Award winner and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow talks to Dean Jelani Cobb about the urgency of reporting on the 2024 Presidential election. She also shares advice to young journalists and her take on the state of journalism in this unprecedented political season.
The 2024 John B. Oakes Awards at Columbia Journalism School 9/23/2024 by On Assignment - From the duPont-Columbia Awards
“If we're not looking at these issues and understanding them for what they actually are - not just what we hope they are - I don't see much of a bright future, for my kids or anybody else's.”—Evan Simon, ABC News ProducerEver wonder if your plastic really gets recycled when you throw it in that bin? Lisa Cohen and Abi Wright speak to ABC News’ Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman, and his producing team to hear how they tracked their own plastic bags, with surprising results.
“We have all these new media forms. But we haven't really found one that does what the old school news magazine still do well, which is sit across from someone and look them in the eye and turn TV into a lie detector.“ --HBO Real Sports’ Correspondent David Scott Multiple duPont Award-winning journalist David Scott invited Prizes’ Executive Director Abi Wright and duPont Director Lisa R. Cohen to his HBO Real Sports office back in 2018, following their win for a special investigative hour on the Olympics. We’re revisiting this interview to commemorate the end of an era. For 29 seasons Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel has looked at sports from the complex lens of power, culture, and human rights. This month marks its last episode.In the 2018 episode Scott goes behind the scenes of some of his celebrated reporting - in “The Lords of the Rings,” and his duPont winning coverage of controversies around China’s Olympic games, and in a harrowing trip to Chechnya to interview its repressive leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Scott offers practical tips on how to take on powerful subjects, how to safeguard your footage in dangerous locations and how to evade government “minders” seeking to keep reporters away from the real story. Watch “The Strongman” David Scott’s report on Chechnyan MMA fighters and leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Watch the last episode of HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on December 19.
“These were just ordinary women turned outlaws.” - Director Tia LessinDirectors of the 2023 DuPont award-winning film ‘The Janes’, Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin join journalist and J School Adjunct Professor Jessica Bruder for a lively conversation about their film that deep dives into an historic underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions, in the 60s and 70s.
“The incentive structures in the worlds of politics and news media… are geared towards division and not just division, but demonizing people. And it's very dangerous. It has already resulted in loss of life."-CNN’s Jake TapperJake Tapper is the CNN Chief Washington Correspondent, anchor of The Lead with Jake Tapper, and co-host of the Sunday morning public affairs program State of the Union. In 2023, he was part of the team that won a duPont-Columbia award for their coverage of the conflict in Ukraine. He also hosted the awards at Columbia University in 2018.In this episode, Tapper sits down with Columbia Journalism School’s Dean Jelani Cobb to discuss the extraordinary state of American politics how journalists should report on figures like Trump.
89: The New Yorker's Masha Gessen with Dean Jelani Cobb by On Assignment - From the duPont-Columbia Awards
“I respect the Boy Scouts. I respect what they were founded on. But there was a really dark side and no one was talking about it.” –"Leave No Trace" Director Irene Taylor
“Leave No Trace” is a 2023 duPont-Columbia Award winning documentary that exposes the stunning history of sexual abuse faced by over 80,000 young men and its subsequent cover up by The Boy Scouts of America. The film highlights the voices of six men and boys, who bravely share their stories, and hold power to account.
Director, Irene Taylor, talks about the relentless way her team took on an “All-American” institution and the sensitive way they approached its survivors.
“We all understand just how easily history is forgotten. And this history is being actively destroyed.” –Podcast Host Connie Walker“Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s” is a 2023 duPont-winning series that uncovers the horrific abuse many young indigenous children–including the reporter’s own family–faced at a Canadian residential school.Host and investigative journalist Connie Walker talks about the ethics of making public long buried stories of sexual abuse, highlighting indigenous voices and her own personal stake in this impactful podcast.
“They had told the story of how Tamika died, but not how she lived.”—Podcast Producer Erika Alexander“Finding Tamika” is the 2023 duPont-winning Audible series about Tamika Huston, a Black woman who went missing in 2004. The media paid scant attention, and she became a rallying cry for missing Black women and girls. But who was she outside of this tragedy? Podcast producer Erika Alexander tells us why finding the real Tamika behind the crime statistic is so important, and how journalists need to do a better job of telling these stories.
“People are often surprised when they watch the film and they realize that it's sort of a dark comedy.”“Navalny” follows Alexei Navalny, his team and his family as he investigates his own poisoning, and heads back to Russia to meet his fate. Director Daniel Roher explains how he built a relationship with Russia’s most prominent opposition leader.
“I've seen officers lie in reports or stretching the truth -- that's not new - - but to entirely make something up completely and unequivocally, that just was really disturbing."- Dave Biscobing, ABC15 Chief Investigative ReporterDave Biscobing’s investigations of the Phoenix police department exposed both dishonest officers lying on the witness stand and outrageous accusations fabricated against Black Lives Matters protestors. Tune in to learn what he found, and how he found it.
“We knew it was important to let the cameras continue to roll live. But I'll be honest, we were nervous about where this was going to go when we saw those armored vehicles show up.” - VP of News Stephanie Adrouny, NBC Bay Area
The 2022 duPont-winning documentary “The Moms of Magnolia Street” follows three mothers who protest Oakland’s affordable housing crisis by illegally occupying a vacant home. Tune in as NBC Bay Area documentarians talk about following along from defiant start to explosive finish.
“We understood the magnitude of the event fairly early on and the need to start collecting evidence…That's how we think of this. As evidence, not just cover or B-roll.”
— New York Times Visual Investigations Lead Malachy Browne on the January 6 Capitol riots.
“Day of Rage” is the duPont-Columbia award-winning, New York Times visual investigation of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Co-director Malachy Browne explains what it was like to organize and dissect thousands of hours of footage from “one of the most documented acts of political violence ever.”
For more, visit https://bit.ly/OADayofRage
“A story is an engine for feelings.” - This American Life founder, host and producer Ira Glass
In 2019, This American Life founder, host, and producer Ira Glass gave his special brand of insight into how he crafts “This American Life,” from story inception, to reporting, writing, and production. We revisit his preeminent editorial style that paved the way for generations of narrative docu-style podcasters.
“I felt like I don't have to tell you how brutal racial capitalism is in the United States if I am showing you. I wanted capitalism to indict itself in the film.”
-- director and producer Loira Limbal
In her 2022 duPont Award-winning documentary “Through the Night,” filmmaker Loira Limbal intimately captured the burdens on working mothers and puts a mirror to America’s daycare system, reflecting back the darker sides of capitalism.
“Finding people who praise the government is easy. Finding people who are critical of the government is easy. What is the most difficult is convincing some people who are ordinary citizens who have information to come out and speak up. ”
--- director and producer Nanfu Wang
“These women who join the military are just the finest…and the fact that they are being harassed and abused and driven from military service is really a national security issue.”
--- CBS Managing Editor and Anchor Norah O’Donnell
In episode two of Season 15, WNYC’s KalaLea discusses how her 2022 duPont-Columbia award-winning audio series, "Blindspot: Tulsa Burning," immerses listeners in the past, embedding them in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, while threading the impact of generational trauma through to the present.
NPR’s Laura Sullivan reveals the surprising twists and turns behind her 2022 duPont-award winning Planet Money piece, “Waste Land.” Stowed in boxes of old lobbying documents in private family homes, away from public view, Laura finds out that the oil and gas industry knew all along that plastic recycling would never work – a revelation that led her down a winding road of reporting that she details in this first episode of On Assignment’s Season 15.
Ed Ou is co-director of the duPont-Columbia award-winning documentary A Different Kind of Force — Policing Mental Illness. Ou joins host Lisa Cohen to talk about the process of creating a nuanced and intimate documentary that tackles two of the most fraught subjects in American life — police violence and mental illness.
Earlonne Woods and Nigel Poor are the co-creators and co-hosts of the 2021 duPont Columbia Award-winning podcast Ear Hustle, a unique podcast produced in San Quentin State Prison. In this interview, they recount the origin story of this unlikely project, offer insight on the challenges of reporting inside prison, and share the true definiton of "ear hustling."
Isobel Yeung talks about India Burning, her 2021 duPont Columbia Award-winning work for Vice on Showtime and the importance of international journalism.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 team’s commitment to transparently inform viewers, and how WNBC reporters and photographers grappled with the fear of reporting on a highly infectious virus.
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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.
See the full reconstruction, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxYmILDya0A&t=77s
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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 student session to celebrate McNeil’s Chancellor win.
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 Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, among others.
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 the time of COID-19.
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 feature length documentary while still fulfilling their obligations as reporters at a local, daily news outlet.
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 of 2018.
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.
2019 duPont-Columbia winner Alexandra Shiva talks navigating language and cultural barriers to make a humorous and important film about refugees that transcends party lines.
We catch up with 2019 duPont award winning director Alexandria Bombach about her latest film, “On Her Shoulders.” It’s an achingly beautiful 3-month snapshot of the life of activist and Yazidi genocide survivor, Nadia Murad. But it’s also a call to action for journalists and filmmakers, to think about the stories we tell, how we tell them and most importantly, why.
2019 duPont-winning Directors Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir interviewed 14 eloquent, emotional rape survivors for “I Am Evidence,” but only four women’s stories made it into the film. Tune in to this episode to hear about the painstaking choices they had to make as they navigated finding, selecting and telling these stories with honesty, integrity and care.
Director Bing Liu started making “Minding the Gap,” when he was 23-years-old. Now, six years later, he’s premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and snagged himself an Oscar nomination.
As the countdown to the Academy Awards begins, get a behind the scenes look at how Liu made the film, plus hear about some of his ethical dilemmas while filming. But before you listen, be warned. There will be spoilers.
NYT Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones talks to NBC News anchor Lester Holt about reporting on race, the perils of making things personal, and takeaways from her 2018 John Chancellor Award-winning excellent reporting.
Roger Ailes founded Fox News, kicked off #MeToo, and helped elect Donald Trump. “It was about using Roger's story to try to make sense of where we were as a country...it gave us a point of entry to a difficult complicated national moment,” says Producer Will Cohen. In this episode of On Assignment, Cohen discusses navigating Fox News for access, the challenge of profiling a dead man, and how Ailes influenced the current media and political climate.
“RBG” Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West plus Executive Producer Amy Entelis talk the power of optimism, the challenging rules for filming in the Supreme Court, and how RBG herself reacted to seeing the film for the first time in front of a sold out audience at Sundance.
When you spend 15 years on a story, you tend to get so close to your sources, they sometimes get jealous: “They felt as if I was in some ways cheating on them by talking with other people.” Lukas Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson talks about how to navigate source relationships in her immersive book “The Warmth of Other Suns”.
Isabel Wilkerson’s award winning epic tells the stories of three people who’ve never met, but whose experiences with the Great Migration from the South to the North
“So a kid did scribble on a sidewalk. Is that technically vandalism? Sure. But is the best way to handle it really for the officer to arrest that kid?“
As the new school year begins, a new On Assignment episode explores how schools across the country are disciplining students...by arresting them.
ABC15’s Dave Biscobing on his 2018 duPont-winning, relentless series that stopped a self-described “advocacy” group from exploiting the Americans with Disabilities Act for millions of dollars.
“Our stories in the end are (less) about sports - they're about power or culture or you know triumph over adversity or human rights. It is almost like a Trojan horse to get inside and then ask the human rights questions.”
“Going into Syria itself at the point where we started shooting was basically a suicide mission. Not so much the risks of combat, but the risk of being kidnapped, sold to ISIS and having your head cut off. So we were making a film about the Syrian civil war and we couldn't shoot in the Syrian civil war.”
Zoe Chace of This American Life and Michael Barbaro of The Daily speak about the rewards and challenges of making stories for audio, the "tyranny of the good talker," and the sense of intimacy that comes from the voice alone.
An open conversation with Natalia Antelava about her radio documentary “Russia’s New Scapegoat.” The 2018 duPont-Columbia Award winning radio documentary exposes the Russia’s growing anti-LGBT crisis.
A candid conversation with director James Bluemel and his fearless subject Hassan Akkad about their film Exodus. The 2018 duPont-Columbia Award winning documentary captures the extraordinary journeys of refugees fleeing to Europe, using their first hand stories and footage.
Zoe Chace has no problem walking up to strangers with headphones on and mike poised. It’s how she captured her duPont-Columbia winning story, “Ep 600 Will I Know Anyone at This Party?” which gives a firsthand account of the immigration push back taking place in America today.
Chace is a producer at the radio program and podcast, This American Life. She reveals her tips for getting into the Republican convention without credentials, persuading people to talk when they don’t want to, and managing fears of getting fired. Check out the “Deploraball” episode referenced in this week’s podcast. And see Chace and our other winners accept their batons at the 2018 duPont-Columbia ceremony.
Gawker went bankrupt after releasing the Hulk Hogan sex tape, but the scandal uncovered a far bigger threat to the press: billionaires angling to silence the media.
In Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, Director Brian Knappenberger explores how billionaires like Peter Thiel and Sheldon Adelson used their fortunes to censor journalists at Gawker and the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Washington Post Chief Correspondent Dan Balz knows politics. In conversation with Executive Editor Martin Baron, Balz shares with us the lessons he learned covering seven presidents--and how to report in the era of Trump.
'Obit' by Vanessa Gould offers viewers a glimpse into the world of the New York Times obituaries desk, examining the work of the small team tasked with writing profiles of the recently deceased.
Oscar-winning director John Ridley and veteran ABC News producer Jeanmarie Condon wove together intimate first person accounts and archival footage to create a stunning, cinematic portrait of the events preceding the 1992 Los Angeles riots in the new documentary 'Let It Fall.' Ridley and Condon visited the Columbia Journalism School to discuss the film with professor June Cross.
Filmmakers Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro, and Morgan Pehme followed lobbyist, political strategist, and self-identified "dirty trickster" Roger Stone for five years. In a recent conversation with Columbia Journalism School professor Betsy West, they discuss how their work resulted in the Netflix documentary "Get Me Roger Stone."
On Assignment speaks with Kate Howard, a veteran investigative reporter for WFPL’s Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, who shares her essential tips for doing a 15-minute background check on your sources.
NBC Anchor and Correspondent Kate Snow, who won a 2017 duPont award for her Dateline NBC report, “The Cosby Accusers Speak,” talks with On Assignment about her experience reporting on 27 of the women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual harassment and assault.
Correspondent, investigative reporter, and J School graduate Mariana van Zeller speaks with On Assignment about covering the opioid epidemic in the U.S., as well as about balancing her personal and professional life.
Lindsey Smith of Michigan Radio was one of the first reporters to break the story of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. She spoke to On Assignment about learning there were devastating lead levels in Flint's water and about covering the crisis, which has impacted her both professionally and personally. Her documentary, 'Not Safe to Drink,' won a duPont this past year for its outstanding storytelling and investigative work.
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 he builds over years.
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 film.
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, our recommendations for what to watch: Gleason and Street Fight.
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 Best Documentary Short in 2016. You can watch “A Girl in the River” on HBO now, as well as Obaid-Chinoy's other work, “Pakistan: Children of the Taliban” and “Saving Face.”
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 honorees echoed his sentiments, reaffirming just how critical journalism is, now more than ever.
See the complete list of this year’s winners here. Watch the full ceremony and learn more about the duPont-Columbia Awards at duPont.org. #duPont2017
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 Owen’s story through a combination of home movies, Disney clips, and original animation. It's based on the 2014 book of the same name by Owen's father.
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 religious discrimination, and a Polk Award for her 2016 This American Life episode about school desegregation in Missouri.
Hannah-Jones discussed these experiences at the Columbia Journalism School in September as part of our Delacorte Lecture Series, which brings in leading writers and editors from the magazine world to speak to our students.
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 included, risk their lives in conflict zones, Diary of a Bad Year.
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 School so we could hear what it’s like to be on the tarmac day-after-day with the campaign. Hint: “Stamina” is the word of the episode.
Learn more about what Alba and her fellow campaign embeds experience on the trail here. Watch Alba discuss the email scandal and Bernie Sanders’ campaign with Clinton here.
The “Women We Love” series features great conversations with women who are 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.
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 Sherman with a room full of interested journalists and journalists-in-training, just as we learn the news that Fox News has settled anchor Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit for 20 million dollars. Then we talk to Grueskin in our On Assignment studio to hear what impressed him most about Sherman's exhaustive work.
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, was the final screening at the duPont sponsored film series Film Fridays last spring. She has worked as the principal cinematographer on over 40 feature-length documentaries. Some of her credits include award-winning pieces like “The Invisible War,” “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Women, War and Peace.” Kirsten has a longstanding collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras and is credited as cinematographer for “The Oath,” “Citizenfour,” and the upcoming "Asylum."
Her directorial debut, Cameraperson, is a deeply personal and autobiographical film that Kirsten calls, “an acknowledgement of how complex it is to film and be filmed.” It was an official selection for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Cameraperson opens at the IFC Center in New York City on September 9th.
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 most outrageous objects of his scrutiny, plus how he cultivates sources.
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 film’s exhaustive five year production, which traces the impact of HIV through three generations of women in a rural South Carolina community. Hear June and Lisa on the successes and pitfalls of documentary filmmaking and the difficulties of covering such an emotionally painful subject.
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 like in the audience when the Oscar was announced.
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 Silence is a companion piece to The Act of Killing - both films were nominated for Oscars. Oppenheimer visited Columbia Journalism School last year to show the film and to talk about it afterwards, as part of our Film Fridays documentary series.
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!