January 23, 2025; Washington, D.C. — NPR has won a 2025 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for its coverage of the war in Gaza. The prestigious duPont-Columbia Award honors outstanding public service in audio and video reporting.
Daniel Estrin, NPR's International Correspondent in Jerusalem, and Anas Baba, NPR's producer in Gaza, and the NPR Mideast reporting team have led the network's coverage of the conflict since Hamas launched its surprise attack into southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Since then, their reporting has included multimedia stories documenting the human impact of war and the history of the conflict between Israel, Palestinians, and other groups in the Middle East. Baba is one of the few Palestinian journalists to remain in Gaza working with a U.S. news organization.
The duPont-Columbia Award judges stated, "NPR's coverage of the war in Gaza exhibited ingenuity and sensitivity at great risk, getting behind the politics to show how the conflict has affected the men, women and children on all sides."
"We are a team of Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, Jews, Christians, Muslims, though really we're all the same tribe – journalists... From day one we have had a mission: to bring our listeners into the hospital or into the killing field to listen to somebody else's pain knowing that many listeners would bristle but when you hear that quivering voice hitting your ear, it's like they're speaking directly to you," said Daniel Estrin during the acceptance speech. "Some listeners have written and told us that those voices move them to see things differently—we're public media, that's what we do."
"Thank you for this honor and thank you for honoring all of the voices from Gaza," said Anas Baba in a video from Gaza. "We did both…stories about life and stories about death and we are still reporting the impossible. Among all that's happening in the meantime from hunger, starvation, devastation of the displacement and even bombs, what keeps me going is telling the stories about Gaza."
"NPR is honored to receive the duPont-Columbia Award for our work covering the war in Gaza," said Edith Chapin, Senior Vice President, Editor in Chief and acting Chief Content Officer for NPR. "We are proud of our team of reporters, producers, editors, and photographers who have dedicated countless hours to covering every aspect of the conflict as it unfolds while sharing stories that show the impact it has on the people who live with the reality of war each day."
While we can't name everyone involved, countless people's efforts went into this work, here's a list that includes the NPR Mideast reporting team, the International Desk and others in the NPR newsroom who supported this coverage:
- Correspondents, Israel: Hadeel Al-Shalchi, Daniel Estrin, Kat Lonsdorf
- Correspondent, Dubai: Aya Batrawy
- Correspondent, Amman: Jane Arraf
- Correspondent, Rome: Ruth Sherlock
- Correspondent, DC: Becky Sullivan
- Correspondent, Berlin: Rob Schmitz
- Correspondent, London: Lauren Frayer
- Mideast Editors, DC: James Hider, Larry Kaplow
- Senior Director Field Security, DC: Caroline Drees
- Senior Producer, DC: Greg Dixon
- Correspondent, DC: Greg Myre
- Producer, Gaza: Anas Baba
- Chief International Editor, DC: Didi Schanche
- Producers, Israel: Alon Avital, Eve Guterman, Itay Stern
- Producer, West Bank: Nuha Musleh
- Producer, London: Abu Bakr Bashir
- Editors, DC: Hannah Bloch, Gerry Holmes, Mark Katkov, Russell Lewis, Tara Neill, Vincent Ni, Andrew Sussman
- Visual Journalist, DC: Daniel Wood
- Producer, Beirut: Jawad Rizkallah
- Photographers, Israel: Tamir Kalifa, Maya Levin
- Photographer, Athens: Ayman Oghanna
- Producer, London: Fatima Al-Kassab
- Producer, Cairo: Ahmed Abu Hamda
- Producer/Editor, DC: Samantha Balaban
- Producers, DC: Catie Dull, Nina Kravinsky, Lauren Migaki
- Editor in Chief, DC: Edith Chapin
NPR.org features all of NPR's coverage of the Middle East and the war in Gaza, including the award-winning story entries.
This year's award recipients also included Member station WNYC Studios' On the Media and ProPublica's, "We Don't Talk About Leonard."
Founded in 1942, the duPont-Columbia Awards uphold the highest standards in journalism by honoring winners annually, informing the public about those journalists' contributions and supporting journalism education and innovation. A jury made up of industry veterans selected 30 finalists and 16 winners. The pool of entries includes traditional national and local news outlets from across the country, as well as streaming and entertainment outlets.
The 2025 duPont-Columbia Jurors are: Madhulika Sikka (Jury Chair), Nina Alvarez, David Bauder, Lee Kamlet, Mark Lukasiewicz, Geraldine Moriba, David Rummel, Robert Smith, and Betsy West.
The award winners were announced on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, at a ceremony hosted by Steve Inskeep, Host of NPR's Morning Edition and Bill Whitaker, CBS News 60 Minutes Correspondent. A full list of this year's winners and a recording of the ceremony are available at https://dupont.org/.
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