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Journalism Awards

The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards

The next duPont Awards will be presented at Columbia on January 22, 2009.

Winners were notified confidentially in early November. Public announcement will be made on Jan. 12, 2009, and the duPont Awards ceremony will take place at Columbia on Jan. 22, 2009.

Read the press release and descriptions of the 2008 winning programs

2008 Awards Ceremony

Telling the Truth 2008

They were honored and presented with their baton at the duPont Awards ceremony on January 16, 2008 at Columbia University. These outstanding journalists and their award-winning coverage were also featured in the annual PBS broadcast of Telling the Truth: The Best in Broadcast Journalism, hosted by Christiane Amanpour, which premiered on Monday, January 28, 2008.

Selected from 510 submissions, the 2008 duPont-Columbia Awards award winners are:

  • CBS News for 60 Minutes: The Mother of All Heists
  • Chicago Public Radio, Alix Spiegel & PRI for This American Life: Which One of These Is Not Like the Others?
  • Florentine Films/Hott Productions & WETA-TV, Washington, DC, for Through Deaf Eyes on PBS
  • HBO, Ricki Stern & Annie Sundberg for The Trials of Darryl Hunt
  • KHOU-TV, Houston, for Rules of the Game
  • KMOV-TV, St. Louis, for Left Behind: The Failure of East St. Louis Schools
  • KNOE-TV, Monroe, Louisiana, for Names, Ranks and Serial Plunder: The National Guard and Katrina
  • MSNBC & Richard Engel for War Zone Diary
  • NBC News for Dateline: The Education of Ms. Groves
  • NPR & Daniel Zwerdling for Mental Anguish and the Military
  • Paladin Invision, London, & WETA, Washington, DC, for Jihad: The Men and Ideas Behind Al Qaeda on PBS
  • WBBM-TV, Chicago, for Fly At Your Own Risk
  • WFAA-TV, Dallas, for Television Justice


Contact Information

Abi Wright, Director
Jonnet Abeles, Program Director, Prizes and Programs
Madiha Tahir, Assistant
Columbia University Journalism School
2950 Broadway MC3805
New York, NY 10027
Ph: 212-854-5047
Fax: 212-854-3148
chancelloraward@jrn.columbia.edu

Abi Wright joined the school’s prizes and programs department in July 2008 as the director of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards and the John Chancellor Award. Wright spent seven years working at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), where she worked most recently as communications director. She was responsible for CPJ’s overall communications strategy, publicizing issues, handling breaking news and producing the annual benefit dinner.

Wright spent July 2003 through July 2005 reporting on press abuses throughout Asia as CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. That job involved tracking and documenting regional trends, including the jailing of journalists in China and criminal defamation charges against journalists in Indonesia. She is a 1989 graduate of Barnard College, and an experienced television producer. Wright has worked for NBC News, ABC News and Fox News.