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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. With us now, Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker writer and dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He'll talk about this year's winners just announced on campus last night of the Columbia-duPont Broadcast journalism awards, and the state and meaning of journalism right now.

I'm delighted to be able to say that WNYC's On The Media was one of the duPont winners. We'll get to what they won for. Others ranged from local stations like KPRC-TV in Houston, which covered their city's crumbling water infrastructure; to a group called The Ocean Project, which reported an investigative piece on illegal fishing practices and human rights abuses in that context by China; to MTV for a documentary on the practice of forced reproduction in the antebellum South. Here's a short excerpt from that documentary which was called Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney.

Female Speaker 1: A version of cotton grows on the West African coast and there is a depth of botanical history that makes us know that West African women understood cotton root as being a contraceptive for hundreds of years. This is a transfer of knowledge between women who are trying to wrest some control back from an obscene system.

Female Speaker 2: Enslaved women were able to prevent themselves from giving birth. That was a political act of resistance. She could protect herself in a way that was clandestine and that undermined the institution of slavery. Enslaved women did that every single day.

Female Speaker 3: Mary's decision totally disrupted the profit-making enterprise of her enslaver. We also note that men supported women women's efforts to control their fertility and to say, without saying it out loud, my future children will not be born into this system of enslavement. Slavery ends with me.

Brian Lehrer: An excerpt from Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney, which was awarded a Columbia-duPont Award last night, widely considered broadcast journalism's highest honor. With us now is Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker writer and dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Jelani, always great to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jelani Cobb: Thank you. It's good to be here with you, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: I'm good, thank you. Want to remind people or tell those who don't know what the duPonts are intended to honor and who makes those decisions?

Jelani Cobb: The duPonts are intended to honor the very best in broadcast journalism. We follow the theme of deeply reported, well told. That is the through line of the wide array of different kinds of stories that you'll hear and see being recognized. They have that in common, that they are really exemplary of deep, deep reporting and the craft of storytelling is really just exemplary. Excuse me.

Brian Lehrer: I'm sorry. You want to finish it? Sorry, I thought you were done. Go ahead and finish that thought.

Jelani Cobb: No, no, I'm done. I'm done. Go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I was going to invite you to talk a little about the winning MTV documentary that we just excerpted from.

Jelani Cobb: That was amazing. It engaged with this surreptitious history of the ways in which women sought to control their fertility, as you heard in the clip. Some really amazing historians who contextualize that, Jennifer Morgan, who has studied the history of black women who were enslaved for a really long time, and Daina Ramey Berry and Tara Hunter, people who are really outstanding scholars on this subject matter.

It's an interesting thing because we typically think of one of the things that was notable about this film is that we typically think about questions of reproduction as being 20th century things or maybe things that relate to white women in the 19th century. We don't think about what kinds of questions and what kinds of issues were being confronted by women who were considered chattel. That story, even though it's known to specialists who study that history really, really needed to be more widely recognized and this film does an excellent job of it.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, I guess MTV has come a long way from its origin in the 1980s.

Jelani Cobb: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Pop music videos, right?

Jelani Cobb: Yes, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Let me mention with pride that WNYC's On The Media won a duPont for their series about the influential conservative legal activist Leonard Leo. The series was called We Don't Talk About Leonard.

Jelani Cobb: Yes, We Don't Talk About Leonard.

Brian Lehrer: Andrea Bernstein, I believe, was there to accept the award last night as a lead reporter on that series. Ilya Marritz, our longtime colleague, was another lead reporter. Here's a short excerpt from one of the episodes from that. Here's Ilya.

Ilya Marritz: Donald Trump is running for president. He's well ahead in the race for the Republican nomination in February of 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia dies of a heart attack while on a quail-hunting trip in Texas. President Obama picks what he regards as a safe choice, confirmable even for some Republicans.

President Obama: Today I am nominating Chief Judge Merrick Brian Garland to join the Supreme Court.

[applause]

Ilya Marritz: Leo's judicial crisis network responds by pouring money into radio and television ads attacking Garland. Like the ads to support Alito and Roberts they ran a decade earlier, these messages are meant to define the debate before it begins.

Female Speaker 4: Obama and his liberal allies have been working hard to paint Garland as a moderate for the Supreme Court, but there is no painting over the truth. Garland would be the tie breaking vote for Obama's big government liberalism. The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, gutted. Partial birth abortion, legalized.

Ilya Marritz: The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, refuses to hold a vote.

Mitch McConnell: The next president will be making this choice. The people will decide who should be the appointing authority, so no, he will not be considered by the Senate.

Brian Lehrer: One of the political dirty tricks of all time, Mitch McConnell refusing--

Jelani Cobb: One of the most consequential, certainly.

Brian Lehrer: That's right. Refusing to bring the Merrick Garland nomination to a vote because it was too close to the 2016 election and then ramming through the Amy Coney Barrett nomination, which was even closer to the election in 2020. We all know that. Jelani, there's so much more in that series, so why the duPonts recognize that On The Media series with a duPont?

Jelani Cobb: Well, for this story, one of the things that was notable about it was that not only was it deeply reported, but it was difficult to deeply report. One of the things about the story was that this person wields such gigantic influence that very few people wanted to go on the record about him, and has control over a vast amount of resources that can make or break careers, or make people's lives much easier and much more difficult. In the navigating around this to find this figure or this person who has deliberately not had a high profile, been operating the machinery from a relatively nondescript kind of space.

In telling that story, they really highlight the context of how we got-- if we're looking at the headlines of our contemporary politics, how we got to that moment. A lot of it is much more easily understood once you see this, once you engage with this series.

Brian Lehrer: One more example of a duPont winner, then we'll pull back and talk a little bit about these extraordinary times that we're headed deeper into in your latest New Yorker article on that. This last duPont award sample comes from a group called The Ocean Project.

Jelani Cobb: Yes, Outlaw Ocean Project.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Outlaw Ocean Project-- even better and more edgy, which reported an investigative piece on illegal fishing practices and human rights abuses in that context by China. Here it is.

Male Speaker 1: Just preparing messages for the crew on the fishing vessels to take contact with them and, yes, that we have probably some good talk.

Male Speaker 2: How long have you been on board? "One year." Where are you from? "Indonesia." Is there anyone back home you want us to try to contact to say we saw you? "Okay, my wife. Phone number," and then there's a phone number, and then there's a, "I love Indonesia. I heart Indonesia."

Brian Lehrer: Obviously, some of that was very visually oriented.

Jelani Cobb: Yes, I can. I can narrate a little bit of that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you want to do that?

Jelani Cobb: Sure. What was happening in that clip was that reporters, Journalists from The Outlaw Ocean project had identified a Chinese fishing vessel on the high seas. Then using a speedboat, they got into close enough proximity to that boat that they could throw bottles, like message in a bottle kind of technique. They throw the bottle onto the deck of the boat. These workers, who are very often captive workers, people who've suffered significant human rights abuses and who are at sea for very extended periods of time, were able to respond to the questions written on the notes inside those bottles and then throw them back overboard.

I don't need to emphasize how incredibly committed and brave and difficult that kind of reporting is, but that's the only way that you get access to the kind of stories that they tell here.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Sounds like they might have been literally risking their lives.

Jelani Cobb: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: I didn't previously know, obviously, of The Outlaw Ocean Project, since I didn't say their name right the first time. That was obvious. Are they even a news organization? Do you have to be a news organization to win a duPont Broadcast Journalism Award?

Jelani Cobb: Yes, they are. They are a news organization, and they're a very innovative one. They treat the ocean as a beat because there are so many different ways in which we interact with the ocean, whether that be through climate change, or through fishing, or international trade, or questions relating to human rights. There's an infinity of ways in which the ocean needs to be reported on, and so that's what they do. They take it as a beat. I think we're less oriented toward whether you are a news organization than we are toward whether your project is news. The definition of who you are is less important than what you've done.

Brian Lehrer: We sampled from three of the 16, by my count, winners. Correct that number if it's wrong. Want to say anything about if there were themes or patterns to this year's winners that might reflect our times?

Jelani Cobb: Sure. We have a VICE news story called Battleground Texas, which followed of four families as they navigated a legislative session as 48 anti-trans bills were being considered in that legislature. We also have an amazing story out of Oklahoma City from KFOR in which that news organization followed a story for 20 years of a person who was wrongly convicted until he was finally exonerated for a murder he did not commit, and having served 48 years in prison.

Phil Williams, who was one of the great local reporters in the country working right now, did an incredibly brave series on the rise of right wing extremism in Tennessee and the way that it is being infused into and connected to state and local politics there. He's suffered and dealt with a good number of threats to his well being that have come from some of these organizations.

There's a story from Scripps News about the missed signals, the missed signs, warnings and a red flag law for a person who, unfortunately, went on to commit a mass shooting. There's just a real wealth of great journalism here. In addition to all the things that we're talking about topically, the sub theme here is journalism itself. It's a great event to have the awards in Low Library at Columbia each year. It is a really great opportunity to bring together people who selflessly practice this craft of journalism not for glory, certainly not for wealth, but because they believe a better informed public can make for a better democracy.

Brian Lehrer: Maybe that's a good segue to talking about some of your own journalism in The New Yorker. Right after the election in November, you wrote a piece called 2016 and 2024 that began with a comparison of the conversations you had with concerned friends and relatives after Trump's first election and the ones you've been having this time. Where would you begin to compare and contrast?

Jelani Cobb: Well, I wrote that when it was still 2024 and now, 2025 feels like a completely different era and we're only, I guess, four days into this administration. The way that they've come out of the gate is different than the way that they came out of the gates before. You could even see in 2016 that Trump seemed intimidated that he'd won an election that no one expected him to win, including himself. Now, there's a much more defiant edge. They have moved very aggressively against things like DEI. It's stunning to see the reversal of the 1965 executive order that Lyndon B. Johnson issued to prohibit discrimination in federal hiring.

They are sending a signal, I think, very much about the direction that they want to move the country in. It's one that is notably reactionary and likely going to go further in that direction. I think that that's the big difference that we'd see.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we have about five minutes for phone calls if anybody wants to get in here with Jelani Cobb, who is the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as well as a writer for The New Yorker. 212-433-WNYC with any thoughts about any of the duPont award winners or discussion of the role of journalism in the new Trump administration era or maybe your different feelings now compared to the opening days of Trump one. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692.

You do go on in that article to express concern about journalism in this new context being impaired by financial struggles, declining trust, and disruptive new technologies, as you identify, and the decisions of billionaire owners like those who canceled their editorial board's endorsements of Kamala Harris at The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. How do you see the ability of news organizations today to inform the public about truth versus lies, and legitimate pros and cons of this Trump administration's policies?

Jelani Cobb: Well, I think one of the things that Trump said during the first tenure was that he disparaged the media so frequently because he wanted to place us in a position where when we report about something or we say that he did something that people won't believe us. It's an attack on our credibility. The real question lies in what is the capacity we have, what is the willingness we have to actually tell the truth and to report fearlessly against an administration, the same as we would say for any administration we should ideally? To do this in a context in which the consequences may be severe, maybe pressures placed on ownership, and the organizations that the news organizations are part of and all the other kinds of tools that are at the disposal of the federal government.

From my standpoint, I see lots of reporters who are undaunted by this. The group of people who I'm most closely in contact with are willing to do their jobs no matter what. I think there are bigger questions about the organizational structure of journalism and what will come from that. I think we have yet to see how that will play out.

Brian Lehrer: The financial struggles, the disruptive new technologies, as you put it. I'm curious how you're training students at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia, where you're the dean, in this context. I'm even thinking about this morning's breaking media news-- I don't know if you saw it yet, that CNN is laying off 200 people who work on its TV channel and hiring just as many to work on their digital content side. You read that news as the dean of the Columbia J School, and you think what?

Jelani Cobb: I think that we continue exactly along the lines that we have been, which is that we are training our students to operate in multiple platforms and multiple skill sets. We have the best data journalism program in the country and we've invested in that for a reason. I think that what we're seeing is the old structure in which people had allegiance to print or broadcast or audio or different kind, that has entirely collapsed. We are now training students who can operate in multiple kinds of platforms, and who can do stories in different ways, and who are digitally fluent. Along with that, a very sizable helping of the ethics that we need to be concerned with as we move into these different kinds of narrative and reporting spaces. For us, you know, that news from CNN, I guess it's jarring, but it is where the industry has been going for a minute, and so it isn't entirely shocking.

Brian Lehrer: Joanne in the Bronx has a question about the duPont award list. Joanne, you're on WNYC. Hi, there?

Joanne: Hi. I haven't seen the list of the winners. I was wondering if the list includes the remarkable Palestinian reporters in Gaza who managed to do their job under the most incredibly horrible circumstances, including the death of well over 100 of their colleagues. If not, why not?

Jelani Cobb: Yes, we have a number of Palestinian journalists and one of whom sent a video message because he is in Gaza and has been unable to come here for the awards. We recognized NPR for their Gaza coverage and the difficult and in depth work that they had done on this. Also, we recognized This American Life for a story that they did-- Yosef, about a young man, his struggles to keep his family safe as he was in Gaza. Then we also additionally recognized The New York Times for a story they did which highlighted visual evidence that showed that Israel had dropped 2,000 pound bombs in places that it had ordered civilians to go to for safety.

There were a number of stories that connected with what had been happening in the war in Gaza that were recognized, as well as a number of stories that examined the implications and various aspects of the war in Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: One more call. Michael in Atlanta. You're on WNYC with Dean Jelani Cobb. Hi, Michael?

Michael: Hi, Brian. Hi, Dean. How are you?

Jelani Cobb: Hi.

Michael: I'm actually a journalist here in Atlanta, and I find myself really wondering what our readers who are more on the right actually want and what people who are more on the Republican sphere want out of journalism. Do you really think that they want the entire news ecosystem in this country to be Fox News? What is your sense of what they want out of journalism? That's a question mark for me. They really want to see the continued erosion of all factual information. Thank you.

Jelani Cobb: Yes, it's interesting. I don't know if this is bad practice or not, but I'm scrupulously unconcerned with what people want. I think as a journalist, I've primarily been concerned with how close can we get to the truth. Very often the truer something is, the less people want to hear it. It may be difficult for people to absorb. Now, we've reached a point where there's a handy way of dispatching anything that you don't like, anything that makes you uncomfortable. You can just say it's fake news or it's ideologically biased or any of those things.

For me, it would be, I think, really dangerous to actually engage the question of what audiences want from us outside of things like, oh, people want more sports coverage or they want more local coverage or those kinds of things. I think those kinds of questions are important, but for an outcome or a particular framing or a particular kind of thing, I think that we should just be guided by our ethics and our consciences and try to do the best work that we can to tell the most complete, the most fair, the most ethical and representative version of the facts and then leave it for people to decide.

Brian Lehrer: A principled and provocative way to end this segment with Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker writer and dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Obviously, you can see his journalism in The New Yorker. Is there a place people can see the duPont award winners who you announced last night or excerpts of their work or anything? Is there a website?

Jelani Cobb: Yes, it's available on the dupont.org website. If you go there, you can see information about this year's winners.

Brian Lehrer: Jelani, thanks a lot.

Jelani Cobb: Also, the ceremony is available as well.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you again.

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