ABC News wins duPont award for Diane Sawyer special "Bruce Jenner: The Interview"
— -- ABC News President James Goldston sent the following note to staff to congratulate Diane Sawyer and the team behind the special "Bruce Jenner: The Interview" for winning an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award.
I am proud and delighted to announce that "Bruce Jenner: The Interview" has won the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia Award.
Winning a duPont award is considered broadcast journalism's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. The award is bestowed upon work that illustrates the highest level of achievement in reporting and storytelling and has the greatest impact in the public interest.
The two hour broadcast, with the incomparable Diane Sawyer at the helm, achieved all three of those benchmarks. Diane and the team's vision and execution was deemed a ‘compelling master class of what it means to be transgender’ and reached more than 20 million people. The entire team took enormous care to represent the transgender community to viewers and to make people aware of the very real adversity that the community faces. When the deeply personal and courageous interview was over, it truly changed our understanding around this issue.
This is the fourth duPont award for Diane, the 16th for ABC News in the past two decades and our first in the last five years. The team will receive a silver baton inscribed with Edward R. Murrow's famous observation about the power of television journalism --
"This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box."
These are words we can all reflect on as we move forward into 2016 and into a world Edward R Murrow could scarcely have imagined, where we can reach more people in more ways than ever before.
Please join me in congratulating every member of the team for their groundbreaking work and on this very special honor.
James
Bruce Jenner: The Interview
Anchor:
Diane Sawyer
Senior Executive Producer:
David Sloan
Senior Editorial Producer:
Mark Robertson
Senior Producer:
Jessica Velmans
Lead Producers:
Margaret Dawson
Sean Dooley
Producers:
Gail Deutsch
Keturah Gray
Eric H. Johnson
Tess Scott
Candace Smith
Claire J. Weinraub
Writer:
Diane Sawyer
Field Producers:
Sunny Antrim
Emily J. Whipp
Associate Producers:
Francesca Ferreira
Christina Ng
Editorial Producers:
Mark Abdelmalek
Mary Kathryn Burke
Editors:
Joi De Leon
Robert J. Ferrari II
Ruth Iwano
Kenneth R. Kerr
Luis Mendizabal
Gina M. Pampinella
Jeremy Phillips
Bud Proctor
Jack Pyle
Nicole Swink
Christine “Tine” Fields
Assistant Editor
Thomas Buttner
Graphic Artists
James Holbrook
Kevin Bartels
Crew
Chris Komives (camera)
Dave Coulter (audio)
Sam Painter (camera)
David Mitlyng (audio)
Thomas Krakowiak (camera)
Jeremy Drowne (audio)
Herb Forsberg (camera)
Alex Klymko (audio)
Tony Forma (camera)
Mike Karas (audio)