‘Stain on America'? Not this journalism | Guest column

Paul Janensch
Paul Janensch

To a cheering crowd in Pensacola on Dec. 8, President Donald Trump again berated the news media

"Did you see all the corrections the media has been making? They're saying sorry.  They've been doing that all year. They never apologize,” he told the rally, staged to support Republican Roy Moore’s effort to be elected U.S. senator from Alabama. (Moore lost.)

In a tweet two days later, Trump called the “fake news media” a “stain on America.”

It’s true that over the preceding two weeks, ABC News and CNN corrected stories about the president and his team.

Yes, the news media make mistakes. But they usually correct them.

They also do good work free of mistakes. Consider the winners of the 2018 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for video, audio, digital and documentary journalism.

Silver batons will be presented to the winners on Tuesday at Columbia.

Academy Award winner John Ridley teamed up with ABC News' Lincoln Square Productions to produce the feature-length documentary "Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992."

Some awards were earned for work presented on platforms beyond traditional television and radio.

Film director Ava Du Vernay and Netflix, the video streaming service, won for “13th,” a documentary that accuses the U.S. legal system of discrimination against African Americans. The title refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits involuntary servitude except as punishment for crimes.

ABC News and film maker John Ridley, known for “12 Years as a Slave,” won for “Let it Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992,” a documentary about that city’s racial divide, initially shown in theaters.

Two public radio winners offer their programming as both broadcasts and podcasts, which are audio files distributed on the internet.

“This American Life,” produced by Chicago Public Radio, won for its coverage of the split within the Republican Party.

“Reveal,” produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting, won for coverage of human-rights violations in Russia.

The regular podcast from The New York Times — called “The Daily” — was cited for giving listeners “a seat at the table with Times reporters.”

For the non-print media, the duPont silver batons are the equivalent of Pulitzer Prizes, which mostly go to newspapers and those who work for them.

Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism (my alma mater) administers both the duPonts and the Pulitzers.

John Ridley and Oscar in 2014

CBS News won two duPont awards, one for its Syrian war coverage by correspondent Elizabeth Palmer and the other for a two-part "60 Minutes" report from inside the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

PBS won for the "Frontline" documentary "Exodus," which traces the route of refugees into Europe, and for World Channel's "America ReFramed: Class of '27," a look at early education.

As for cable TV, "HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" won for an investigation into the International Olympic Committee. National Geographic Documentary Films won for "Hell on Earth: the Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS."

Five local television stations were honored for investigative reporting:

  • ABC15 Arizona in Phoenix for exposing abuse of the American Disabilities Act by litigators.
  • KARE 11 in Minneapolis for three projects, including one about the concealing of child molesters.
  • KHOU-TV in Houston for revealing waste in the city's police body camera program.
  • KNTV in San Jose, California, for chronicling the use of school police officers to discipline students.
  • WITI-TV in Milwaukee for examining laws intended to safeguard children but that may put them at risk.

The awards are named for the late Alfred I. duPont, of the chemical duPonts, who owned small newspapers in Delaware.

A “stain on America?”  I say journalism like this is something America can be proud of.

Paul Janensch, a seasonal resident of Vero Beach, was a newspaper editor and taught journalism at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.  E-mail: paul.janensch@quinnipiac.edu.