NPR and some of its public-radio partners are being honored with three 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism.
NPR is receiving recognition for coverage of the ongoing conflict in Syria. StateImpact Pennsylvania, a collaboration of NPR and member stations WHYY(FM) and WITF(FM), is receiving the award for its coverage of energy issues in the region. Remembrances and special programming produced by StoryCorps and NPR for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 will also be honored.
Reporting by NPR on the ongoing conflict in Syria — led by international correspondents Kelly McEvers, based in Beirut, and Deb Amos, a roving correspondent who’s spent three decades covering the region — is being honored for capturing the uprising from its beginning. On reporting trips into Syria and from the border in Turkey and Lebanon, “McEvers and Amos brought clarity and context to a volatile and rapidly changing story,” said a release announcing the award. Their reporting included interviews with Assad regime officials, a report on children singing the praises of Bashar Assad, to the discovery of unity among Christians and Muslims. McEvers and Amos share the award with international editors Edith Chapin and Doug Roberts.
Honored for outstanding coverage of energy issues is StateImpact Pennsylvania, a collaboration between NPR and reporters Scott Detrow of WITF, Harrisburg, Pa., and Susan Phillips of WHYY, Philadelphia. They provided coverage of the gas drilling boom in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale, focusing on the fiscal, environmental and social impact of the state’s energy economy. The “Shale Play” visual companion plots and tracks nearly 9,000 gas wells.
NPR shares a duPont Award with StoryCorps, which is being honored for its remembrances of 9/11, produced and broadcast for the anniversary. In addition to tributes during “Morning Edition,” NPR and StoryCorps co-produced “We Remember: StoryCorps Stories from 9/11,” an hour-long special focusing on lives changed by the attacks. Host Audie Cornish presented stories from people who spoke about lost loved ones, and also reconnected with those interviewed 10 years ago.
The duPont-Columbia Awards will be presented at a ceremony on Jan. 22, 2013, at Columbia University in New York. The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards were established in 1942 by Jessie Ball duPont in memory of her late husband and administered by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
