Columbia Journalism School Community Members Win George Polk Awards
Olivia Carville and Nick Thieme honored for groundbreaking investigative reporting.
The 2024 George Polk Awards recognized Adjunct Professors Olivia Carville, '18 M.A. Business & Economics, and Nick Thieme for their exceptional work in investigative reporting.
Carville, alongside Video Game Reporter Cecilia D’Anastasio, won the Technology Reporting award for their groundbreaking investigation for Bloomberg Businessweek into online child safety. Their reporting uncovered how platforms like Roblox, Instagram and Snapchat enabled predators to exploit children, sparking swift change: Roblox rolled out new safety features, and Meta removed 70,000 accounts linked to sextortion. Carville, a 2018 graduate of the J-School and Investigative Reporting Techniques professor, has been a leading force in award-winning, change-driving journalism.
Thieme, with Alissa Zhu and Jessica Gallagher from The Baltimore Banner, received the Local Reporting award for their in-depth coverage of Baltimore's overdose crisis. Their investigation shed light on the devastating epidemic, exposing overlooked victims and government failures, which led to meaningful policy changes. Thieme co-taught the Frontiers of Computational Journalism with Professor Dhrumil Mehta for the Dual Degree program at the J-School.
Carville and Thieme's work demonstrates the transformative power of investigative journalism and highlights the J-School community’s commitment to advancing data-driven storytelling that drives change.
The George Polk Awards, established in 1949 to honor CBS correspondent George Polk, celebrate journalistic excellence, with this year’s winners selected from 493 submissions. Learn more here.