“Mississippi is very particular. It's the state with the most lynchings. It's a state that just holds so much hurt, national hurt. And so the flag is symbolic of that, right, because this was the last state in the Union that had the Confederate emblem on their flag.”

Radiolab Host and producer, Jad Abumrad, on the history and meaning of the Mississippi state flag, the subject of the 2021 duPont-Award winning podcast episode “The Flag and the Fury”

“She began to describe what was on the clip. And the first question was, are we going to put video on the air of someone being killed? That's obviously a very bright line, editorial decision that you don't make every day. And normally we wouldn't. But to understand the sequence of events and what happened, you needed to see all of it”

- KSTP News Director, Kirk Varner describing the 5am phone call that alerted him to the video of George Floyd’s murder.

“I remember my news director came to me and the weekend co-anchor and she said, ‘You know, I don't know that we'll get to this. But hypothetically, if we needed to broadcast from home, can we put a camera in your apartment?’”

WNBC News Anchor David Ushery on how the hypothetical became all too real, as he talks about covering the COVID pandemic in its early epicenter - New York, New York.

“Any time you are dealing with an event that has so much scrutiny, the bar is really high. I think we all felt the pressure of, worrying about saying something that could be refuted. And so we really just focused on the visuals and what do the visual show, because that is kind of irrefutable.”

- 2021 duPont award winner Nadine Ajaka ofThe Washington Post on the challenges of reconstructing the violent clearing of Lafayette Square by federal officers.

“It's a story of a guy who was locked in a room and the key was thrown away 20 years ago. This guy never got charged. He never got a trial. That is medieval. That is not a thing that should happen in a modern country, especially a country that prides itself on life, liberty and due process and justice.” - Radiolab’s Latif Nasser on his podcast series, The Other Latif

“The reason the story was worth telling was not just to identify a Trump doppelgänger in history, but to really tell the story of the good guys…the people who did right…and made the system work.” -- Rachel Maddow

“I'm sorry to say I knew from the beginning that we weren't going to be able to control this disease, because Americans won't cooperate.” -- Donald G. McNeil Jr.

On our latest episode of On Assignment, The New York Times Science and Health Reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr., 2020 winner of the John Chancellor Award, discusses the rise of his career covering infectious diseases to The Daily host Michael Barbaro.

“The greatest enemy of democracy is interference with the right to vote.” -- Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

On our latest episode of On Assignment, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. relates his 2020 duPont-winning documentary series Reconstruction: America After the Civil War to events of today with duPont juror Mark Whitaker.

“John really insisted on using the word “uprising.” Because as I'm keenly aware, based on my background, one person's riot is another person's uprising, depending on which side of the equation you're sitting.” - ABC News Producer Jeanmarie Condon on the language used in “Let it Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992.”

This month’s On Assignment podcast revisits the deep reporting behind the 2018 duPont-Award winning documentary, linking the decade up to the Rodney King beating with the 1992 uprising that followed. Director John Ridley and ABC News Producers Jeanmarie Condon, Melia Patria and Fatima Curry discuss the film’s ongoing relevance as America faces a racial reckoning after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others.

“We were called to a meeting… in the basement of one of the government buildings in D.C.. We went in the backdoor so our visit wouldn't have shown up on any logs….” —- CBS News Producer Michael Rey on behind-the-scenes, under the radar reporting for the duPont Award winning 60 Minutes “On the Border” series.

This month On Assignment goes an inside look at the groundbreaking reporting in 60 Minutes’ two-part series “On the Border,” which explored family separation at the US/Mexico border. Producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados discuss secret meetings with government sources, and what it was like to have a U.S. president criticize their work. They also talk about the challenges of remotely producing the news for television in the age of COVID-19.

This month On Assignment is revisiting a popular past episode with Kai Wright and Kaari Pitkin of WNYC, creators of the podcast series “Caught: the Lives of Juvenile Justice.” The series gives young people in the juvenile justice system a chance to tell their stories, showing the human side of an often underreported part of the criminal justice system.

This month On Assignment is revisiting a popular past episode with New Yorker Staff Writer Jelani Cobb, who teamed up with FRONTLINE to ask a simple question: Can a troubled police department be reformed? To get answers Cobb embedded with the gang unit of the Newark, New Jersey police department and spoke to officers, citizens, and city officials. Hear him and FRONTLINE producer James Jacoby in conversation with Professor Betsy West on the latest On Assignment podcast.

“That is a holy thing to do - to come forward. I think the verse goes, ‘Thou shall see the truth and the truth shall set you free.’” - Charlie Specht, Chief Investigator, WKBW Buffalo

Specht was dubbed “the source whisperer” by his primary whistleblower. In this episode of On Assignment, he tells how he worked with sources for his 2020 duPont Award-winning reporting on the Buffalo diocese, Fall From Grace: When Priests Prey and Bishops Betray, which uncovered years of mishandled abuse cases and led to the resignation of Bishop Richard Malone.

“When you're starting out, you feel a sort of invincibility and there is an arrogance that comes with with real youth and inexperience…The more really dangerous situations I have been in, the more cognizant I am of the fact that life is very precious and that death is not something to be trifled with.” — CNN’s Clarissa Ward

Clarissa Ward’s reporting from global hotspots – Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen among many others – has won her two duPont-Columbia silver batons. She joined duPont Awards Director, Lisa R. Cohen for a very personal conversation about covering crises, COVID related reporting challenges, and career tips for young journalists.

“Thankfully, we were just so far ahead of the national media, because we got there first and we had people providing us with information, and we had already been working on it for a week straight. So we we were playing chess and they were playing checkers.” — Joe Bruno, WSOC Political Reporter

WSOC-TV political reporters Joe Bruno and Mike Stolp discuss their duPont Award winner - breaking an election tampering scandal in North Carolina’s Bladen County that dominated national headlines, and flags important questions about mail-in voting.

“We've had two dozen theater screenings by now. It's mostly white audiences that really feel opened up to a world that they didn't know — people saying, I had no idea that’s six miles from my house, I didn't know that's what life was like there.” — Filmmaker Lindsey Seavert

Local Minneapolis reporters Lindsey Seavert and Ben Garvin became documentary filmmakers by taking their nightly news coverage of visionary principal Mauri Friestleben and the students of Lucy Laney Elementary and turning it into a duPont Award Winning Documentary, Love Them First.

“Our democracy is imperfect. All of the problems that existed before this film still exist. But whether it's voting, volunteering on a campaign or in your community, to running for office, I hope people feel like there's a place for their voice in the democratic process.” — Rachel Lears

Award-winning director Rachel Lears discusses her prescient film Knock Down the House, which followed four women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, running insurgent, grassroots campaigns.

“I hope that the film could serve as a record. Fifty years later, 100 years later when people truly want to understand, the official version of history is not the only version.“ -- Filmmaker Nanfu Wang

Award-winning director Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow, I Am Another You) talks with Columbia Journalism Professor Betsy West (RBG) about her shocking film One Child Nation.

“One person hearing the other person tell her story on television had empowered the next person to come forward. And you got a sense, that in the room too, they were finding strength in numbers and power in numbers. ”

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

“She had not seen it, and she never asked to see it ahead of time which is pretty extraordinary…people are always asking to see your work ahead of time. She never asked. ” — RBG Producer/Director Betsy West

A repeat of one of our most popular episodes: A look back at last year’s Columbia J-School screening of “RBG,” when the Supreme Court justice herself made a surprise visit. The filmmakers talk about the power of optimism, and how RBG herself reacted to seeing the film for the first time in front of a sold out audience at Sundance.

“Most writing about race simply says ‘there's a disparity that exists.’ That's not news... What's much more important is the why and the how. And I don't think that we see nearly enough of that.” — Nikole Hannah Jones, NYT Magazine

A repeat of one of our most popular episodes: NBC News Anchor Lester Holt speaks with NYT Magazine reporter/writer and 2019 winner of the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism about the convergance race and reporting.

“It really is just like a bunch of people thinking what would amuse us to put on the radio, and we're interested in the news and what's going on. And honestly it is not more sophisticated than that.” — This American Life Host/Producer Ira Glass

In our special 50th episode, find out what goes into the making of This American Life, 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.

“The work we do as journalists on some level is exploitive. That is why then we have an ethical standard to not just be trying to entertain people…That is to me, horrific, because there has to be an actual meaningful reason why I'm doing it.” — WNYC “Caught” Host Kai Wright.

WNYC “Caught” Host Kai Wright and Sr Producer Kaari Pitkin talk about their award winning series on young people caught in the justice system, giving the mic to their subjects, and the challenges of reporting such a difficult topic.

“The first battle is almost with yourself. Because you often are running away from what makes you different…whether that’s being a woman of color whether that's being a practicing Muslim, whether that's being an Arabic speaker, often you want to prove yourself on somebody else's terms.”

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.

In our latest, 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.

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.

“I think that fairness means that you are fairly representing the sides. That fair representation may be that one of the side’s arguments is bullshit.”

A conversation between The New York Times Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones and NBC’s Lester Holt, where she goes deep on reporting about race, the perils of making things personal, and much more.

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”.

“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.

“If we think it's vital to the story we'll probably do whatever it takes to make it happen.” ABC15’s Dave Biscobing on his relentless, 2018 duPont-winning series that showed a self-described “advocacy” group was really “advocating” to put millions in their own pockets.

“Our stories in the end are (less) about sports - they're about power or culture or triumph over adversity or human rights. It is almost like a Trojan horse to get inside and then ask the human rights questions.”

Brian Knappenberger, director of the Netflix documentary Nobody Speak, came to the Journalism School for Q&A about press freedom, the tabloid industry, and the Hulk Hogan/Gawker scandal. 

"There are a lot of people who now appreciate this kind of journalism in a way they took for granted five years ago. They recognize the need for a vital and active press in a time like this."

"It struck me how quickly the facts of a life just start to immediately disappear when someone dies." OBIT director Vanessa Gould on why she was compelled to make her film.

"For almost every one of these individuals, they're talking about things that happened yesterday for them, or that they will carry with them for many years to come."

"We always knew he was an absolutely deplorable person who had done horrible things to our nation. That being said, we wanted to really understand him."

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-Columbia 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.

"When you do [a story] this big, it's really easy to get swept up into things. It's a rollercoaster that you kind of have to ride. There are really good times and there are really difficult times."

"I had the Portuguese television station on one side, and my mother on another phone crying and begging me not to leave the house. And I had to tell her 'Mom, this is my life.'"

We spoke to Daniel Zwerdling, NPR journalist extraordinaire, who has spent years reporting on veterans’ rights. He spoke to us about the parallels between journalism and psychology, his best interview techniques, reporting short news stories versus year-long investigations of the government. 

"I realized that I could approach telling the story by not focusing on a murder and a trial—I could talk about the history of Los Angeles, the history of OJ Simpson, who he really was, to help explain why everyone lost their minds."

Professor Betsy West spoke to filmmaker Nanfu Wang about her film "Hooligan Sparrow," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016. The film follows Ye Haiyan, more widely known as “Hooligan Sparrow," a Chinese activist protesting the case of six young girls who had been sexually abused by their school principal.

"[They had] no clue that what they were doing looked really bad."

The film 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.

"For me, it was a coming of age story. And the stakes were higher because Owen lives with Autism." 

"One of the things that I heard was, “You want to write about black people too much"... Have you ever told a white journalist they're writing about white people too much?"

"I think we are in the middle of one of the seismic shifts in the American media landscape."

"We use our power, as filmmakers, in the ways we want to use it. We do it for our own purposes."

"'If we know we could die, why do we keep doing it?' I didn't have an answer for it myself so I looked to other people to try to answer it."

""I needed editors saying, 'Watch yourself, look at what you’re doing...' Really forcing me to question, 'Are you on his side?'"

"I thought I had figured it out, the hard part was over, I decided 'I'm not going to be a lawyer, I'm going to be a journalist."

"The best question often is silence... It can tell you if someone's not telling the truth, it can tell you if they're hiding something."

"When I first went down to South Carolina, I thought I knew what to expect. But I wasn’t prepared for it. Not at all."

"The muscle in interviewing that so many people forget [is] not the question: it's the follow up."

“On a story like this, you can’t be objective. I can’t recall a story we’ve ever had where the distinction between good and evil was so apparent.”

“You can't divide the self into good parts and bad parts, good guys and bad guys... That's fiction."

"How is it that smart, discerning people fall into a belief system like this and get lost in it? And how do they get out?"

“It was sort of curiosity trumping fear. I think, for me, curiosity trumps fear a lot of the time.”