duPont Winners Address J-School

On Thursday, Jan. 22, thirteen teams of reporters received duPont-Columbia Awards—considered one of the highest honors in broadcast journalism —in Low Library. The next morning, on Jan. 23, three of those teams gathered in the lecture hall of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism to speak to an eager audience comprised mostly of aspiring journalists from the school.

First to speak were two members of the team that created "From Russia with Hate," correspondent and producer Christof Putzel and co-producer, Lauren Cerre. Their documentary exposes the beliefs and practices of skinheads in Russia, who train to carry out violent crimes against minorities across the country.

The pair discussed steps they took to gain their subjects' trust and to convince them to discuss their illegal but often unchecked behavior. They also talked about how they dealt with fear as they rode off to an undisclosed location in a Russian forest to observe and question a band of armed skinheads. "Of course we were scared!" Cerre said, with Putzel nodding in agreement. But the duo ultimately produced the award-winning piece that aired on Current TV.

Rana Good, Journalism '09, was particularly interested in "From Russia with Hate." "I've been to Russia, and I've studied Russia," she said. "I'm a minority, so that [violent racism] is something I had to think about," she said. She acknowledged the value of Putzel and Cerre's work, saying, "The best way to stamp out hate is to make it pubic."

Next to take to the stage were reporters and producers Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson, editor Les Cook, and executive producers Ira Glass and Ellen Weiss who, together, created "The Giant Pool of Money," an episode of the radio show This American Life that aired on Chicago Public Radio, PRI, and NPR in April. The episode was widely praised for elucidating the looming economic crisis in terms that people could understand even though the economic jargon had made other news sources inaccessible.

The team members credit the simple, accessible presentation of their work to the fact that they themselves were learning some of the material for the first time. Blumberg, a teacher at the Journalism School, said that before researching for this show, he hadn't understood the economy himself. Davidson said, "For Alex, the excitement was learning about this [economic] world. For me it was learning that this world I believed in … didn't work."

Finally, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour and CNN/U.S. president Jonathan Klein addressed the crowd to talk about their six-hour documentary series God's Warriors. The series examined religious fundamentalism in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism and explored how each extreme influenced current events.

"I have aspirations of becoming a foreign correspondent," Ben Piven, Journalism '09, said in discussing the personal significance of hearing Amanpour speak. "She's at the top of the field … Her way of presenting facts and of presenting reality is very in line with how I think," he said.