The 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards Celebrate Sound, Sight and Storytelling

Water crises, stolen lands and artistic resistance: all recognized at the 83rd annual Awards ceremony.

January 22, 2025

Last night, journalists gathered at Columbia University’s Low Library to celebrate the 2025 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards. 

This year’s sixteen silver baton winners shed light on critical issues like racial justice, environmental challenges and police misconduct. Co-hosted by 60 Minutes anchor Bill Whitaker and NPR’s Steve Inskeep, the ceremony underscored journalism’s role in driving change.

“It's a pleasure and an honor to be here tonight with so many old friends and distinguished journalists,” said Whitaker in his opening remarks. “You show us who we are, help us see what we're doing right so we can do more of it, and what we're doing wrong so we can address it.”

“One of the stories we're honoring tonight includes this line: ‘How did this happen, and why should we care?’ That question gives us a guidepost, or even a business model, in these uncertain times.”

 

Steve Inskeep, 2025 duPont-Columbia Awards co-host

During the ceremony, Dean Jelani Cobb highlighted the Awards’ legacy of honoring journalism that serves the public good and safeguards democracy: “By maintaining the legacy of Jessie Ball DuPont to honor her husband, Alfred I. DuPont, you help us elevate the standards of excellence for journalists everywhere.”

The evening ended with a powerful reflection on the importance of truth, collaboration and ingenuity from the team behind “Birthing a Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney,” a story of forced reproduction in the antebellum South.

“Telling truths, especially the ones buried away, is a radical act,” said director Nazenet Habtezghi during the documentary’s silver baton acceptance. “It disrupts erasure, challenges power, and gives voice to the silence in a time when truth itself is under attack. This work — our work — is as essential as ever.”

Learn more about the duPont Awards

  • Hate Comes to Main Street
    WTVF-TV, NewsChannel 5 Nashville & Phil Williams

  • The Wrong Man
    KFOR, Oklahoma City & Ali Meyer

  • Murder in Boston
    HBO | Max, Little Room Films & The Boston Globe (Docuseries)
    The Boston Globe & HBO (Podcast)

  • We Regret to Inform You
    Reveal, The Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley & PRX

  • Maine Shooting: Missed Warnings
    Scripps News

  • The Wild West of Education
    ABC10 KXTV, Sacramento & Andie Judson

  • We Don’t Talk About Leonard
    ProPublica & On the Media | WNYC Studios

  • Battleground Texas
    VICE News

  • 40 Acres and a Lie
    Reveal, The Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones & PRX

  • The Space Race
    National Geographic Documentary Films, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Alegria Films & Cortés Filmworks

  • Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney
    MTV Documentary Films, Take Flight Films & Firelight Films

  • You Are Not Alone: Fighting the Wolfpack
    Netflix & Lucernam Films

  • China: The Superpower of Seafood
    The Outlaw Ocean Project

  • The War in Gaza Coverage
    NPR

  • Porcelain War
    Songbird Studios & Imaginary Lane