“Shima was spending eight, 10 hours a day listening to the legislature, calling senators again and again and again I felt like we were being crushed under a Niagara Falls of tape even as we were producing the story.“  -- Jad Abumrad, Radiolab Host and Producer

In this episode of On Assignment, Jad Abumrad and Shima Oliaee discuss the challenges they faced reporting their 2021 duPont-Award winning podcast episode about the history of the Mississippi state flag - the last in the country to display Confederate battle flag imagery. What started as a complex historical audio documentary turned into an even more challenging breaking news story when, in the summer of 2020, the debate over the flag’s design reignited after George Floyd’s murder.

In this conversation with duPont Awards Director Lisa R. Cohen, Abumrad and Oliaee explain how they managed to deftly interweave the story’s many characters and eras into a cohesive narrative. Abumrad gives his best advice for young journalists and Oliaee sheds light on how she managed to contact one of the podcast’s main characters who had not shared his story in 40 years. 

Listen to the duPont-winning Radiolab episode. 

The 2022 duPont-Columbia Awards are open for submissions! If you have done deeply reported audio or video work, visit duPont.org to learn more and submit. You can also watch the 2021 duPont ceremony on PBS digital channels or at duPont.org/watch. 

Follow us on twitter @columbiajourn, or on facebook at facebook.com/duPontColumbiaAwards.