The Radio Television Digital News Association has named ProPublica and its partners the winner of three national Edward R. Murrow Awards. The national competition honors outstanding achievements in broadcast and digital news.
ProPublica and FRONTLINE’s coverage of the insurrection and extremism in America won in two categories: Feature Documentary and Continuing Coverage.
“American Insurrection,” an investigative documentary by ProPublica, PBS FRONTLINE and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Project, won in the Feature Documentary category. The documentary explored the threat posed by violent far-right groups that see themselves as defending the Constitution but that are tied to anti-government, white supremacist ideologies and criminality.
ProPublica and FRONTLINE were also recognized for their continued coverage of extremism in America in the “Documenting Hate” series. Over the last five years, the two newsrooms have collaborated to investigate the rise of extremism in America — from the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia, rally in 2017 to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In addition to these multimedia stories, ProPublica published an interactive timeline of more than 500 videos taken at or around the Capitol and posted on Parler, a right-wing social media site, just two weeks after Jan. 6. The result was one of the most comprehensive historical records of the infamous day. Within days of publication, FBI agents began filing affidavits in support of arrests that drew on images from our app.
“Sacrifice Zones: Mapping Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution,” with its unprecedented data analysis and interactive map, won the Excellence in Innovation Category. The investigative series — a collaboration with The Texas Tribune and Mountain State Spotlight — uncovered more than 1,000 hot spots of toxic industrial air pollution across America and revealed elevated cancer risks for one-fifth of Americans.
Weeks after the series was published, EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited several of the communities featured, and, in what environmental experts called a radical change in tone, he pledged to ramp up the agency’s enforcement activities and later announced significant air monitoring initiatives.
See the Radio Television Digital News Association’s site for a complete list of Murrow Award winners.
