For the first time, three streaming services (Netflix, Max, and Paramount+) won the duPont-Columbia Awards, the streaming equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, in one year.
Columbia Journalism School announced the 16 winners of the 2025 DuPont Awards on Wednesday night during a ceremony at the Ivy League university's campus in upper Manhattan.
While the streamers topped the list of notable new winners, there were a number of DuPont perennials, including Front line, 60 minutesCNN and the broadcast news networks did not make the cut this year.
Bill Whitaker is a reporter 60 minutes And Steve Inskeep, NPR Morning edition The event, which emerged as clouds formed over the media business in the early days of Donald Trump's second presidential term, co-hosted the event. Before the ceremony, Trump appointee Brendan Carr, who chairs the Federal Communications Commission, on Wednesday revived complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC. Jessica Rosenworcel, Carr's Democratic predecessor, dismissed the complaints because they “contrary to the First Amendment.”
Whitaker (and the recipients who delivered acceptance speeches) chose not to directly address the incoming White House administration or mention Trump by name. But Whitaker called the current moment “a perilous time for journalism.” With wars in Europe and the Middle East and host sites around the world, the Committee to Protect Journalists describes this period as one of the bloodiest for journalists in modern history. Here at home, powerful politicians call us “enemies of the people,” and a growing number of news consumers question our credibility. TV news viewership and budgets have shrunk.
“So, journalists,” he continued, “as we used to say in the 1970s: 'Keep on keeping.'” Like reporters, these public servants whose excellence we honor tonight, we have to keep digging, keep looking under the rocks, keep shining light in the shadows, keep “In giving a voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless, continue to report with the honesty, integrity, and facts our democracy demands.”
“Some media outlets broadcast to people who actually care, who actually buy a story,” Inskeep later added. In a divided country and in a competitive environment, we build an audience when we take the story to people who don't yet care. Many people do not trust the media. And my fellow journalists, with all respect: That's good! It might be better if more people were skeptical of some of the things they are told. But we need to face this challenge. Let us prove what we say… and return to the story day after day with an open mind. With tonight's awards, we recommit to our right to do our work – as long as we're allowed to do so.
Winners produced by the streamers included docuseries Murder in BostonFrom HBO | Max, Little Room Films, and The Boston Globe, with accompanying podcasts from the Globe and HBO; documentary The Birth of a Nation: Mary Gaffney's Resistance From MTV Documentary Films and Paramount+; And documentaries from Netflix-Lucernam You're Not Alone: Fight the Wolfpack.
Race in America was the topic of many honorees, with five Silver Batons being awarded to journalists who re-examined the topic at different points in US history. These included recognized projects 40 acres and a lie From the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, Reveal & PRX; Space race From National Geographic Documentary Films, Kennedy/Marshall, Alegria Films & Cortés Filmworks; and Wrong man From KFOR, Oklahoma City and Ali Meyer. Birth of a nation and Murder in Boston It also focuses on race.
Among the three vote winners were NPR for its coverage of the war in Gaza; ProPublica & On the Media WNYC Studios podcast series We're not talking about Leonardand We are sorry to inform youproduced in partnership with Reveal, the Investigative Reporting Project at UC Berkeley.
Among the first-time honorees was the nonprofit journalism organization The Outlaw Ocean Project for its investigative series, China: The seafood superpowerand Scripps News for its ongoing investigations Maine shootings: missed warnings.
Vice News won a DuPont Award for its online film Battlefield Texasand Songbird Studios & Imaginary Lane were honored Porcelain War About the war in Ukraine.
Four local news outlets acquired the duPonts: WTVF-TV, NewsChannel 5 Nashville and Phil Williams, KFOR, Oklahoma City & Ali Meyer, KPRC-TV, Houston & Amy Davis and ABC10 KXTV, Sacramento & Andie Judson.
The DuPont-Columbia Awards were established in 1942. Since 1968, they have been administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A judging panel of industry experts selected 30 finalists and 16 winners. The lineup of entries includes traditional national and local news outlets from around the country, as well as live broadcast and entertainment outlets.
The 2025 DuPont-Columbia jurors were Madhulika Sikka (jury chair), Nina Alvarez, David Bouder, Lee Camlett, Mark Lukasiewicz, Geraldine Moriba, David Rummel, Robert Smith and Betsy West.
