duPont-Columbia Awards
Lukas Prize-Winning Author Alice Driver talks ...

 “Publishers didn't want to deal with the meatpacking articles… You need a legal review. It takes a lot of time. You have to really nail things down because you obviously don't want to be sued by a fifty three billion dollar company.”

— Alice Driver, 2024 Lukas Prize work-in-progress winner.

Author Alice Driver talks about the uphill climb to publish her Lukas Prize-winning book, “Life and Death of the American Worker,” and the “priceless” support the award offered…on top of the $25,000 prize money.

Lukas Prize-Winning Author Alice Driver talks book-writing pro tips, winning Work-in-Progress Prize
Season 17
duPont-Columbia Awards
CNN's Jake Tapper with Dean Jelani Cobb

“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 Tapper

Jake 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 reminisce about their longstanding friendship and talk about the extraordinary state of American politics. including how journalists should report on figures like Trump. 


Season 16
duPont-Columbia Awards
“Navalny”: Daniel Roher’s Real Life Political ...

“People are often surprised when they watch the film and they realize that it's sort of a dark comedy. It's a funny movie. He's a funny guy.”

“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.

Season 5
duPont-Columbia Awards
Michael Barbaro and Zoe Chace in Conversation ...

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.

Season 5
duPont-Columbia Awards
"I Felt Like a Filmmaker, Not Like a Refugee:" ...

“When we were in the back of a van crossing Hungary to Vienna, the driver was drunk and all the smugglers had AK-47s... and I remember my cousin looking at me like, I hope you're not filming. But I was secretly holding the camera.”

Exodus’ subject Hassan Akkad on filming himself, and Director James Bluemel on collecting these important stories.

Directors Lindsey Seavert and Ben Garvin on their Emotional Doc “Love Them First”

“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.

Knock Down the House Director Rachel Lears on Making Fly-on-the-Wall Campaign Docs

“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.

Nanfu Wang Director of One Child Nation

“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.

NBC's Kate Snow on Cosby's Accusers Revisited

“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.

Revisiting RBG: Directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen with EP Amy Entelis on “RBG” documentary

“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.

Revisiting Nikole Hannah-Jones in Conversation with Lester Holt

“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.

Our 50th Episode featuring Ira Glass

“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.

WNYC's Kai Wright and Kaari Pitkin on kids caught in the system.

“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.

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

“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.”

“On Her Shoulders” Director Alexandria Bombach on telling survivors’ stories.

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.

“I Am Evidence” Directors Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir on the outrage of untested rape kits.

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.

First-time Director Bing Liu makes things personal in his Oscar nominated film “Minding the Gap.”

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.

Nikole Hannah-Jones with Lester Holt on covering race and the reporting that won her the 2018 John Chancellor Award

“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.


Producer Will Cohen on the Fox News founder who helped create our current political landscape

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.

Isabel Wilkerson on her Mark Lynton History Prize-Winning book "The Warmth of Other Suns."

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”.

NBC Bay Area's Bigad Shaban schools us about questionable student arrests.

“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.