NPR wins Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for "Waste Land" Investigative Series
The sixteen winners of the 2022 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards have been announced and NPR has won for "Waste Land," a Planet Money and PBS Frontline collaboration that explains how big oil misled the public into believing plastic would be recycled.
NPR investigative correspondent Laura Sullivan and the team tracked down retired industry lobbyists to expose a decades-long marketing scam to convince consumers that plastic products are far more recyclable than they really are. "Waste Land" reveals how plastic makers for decades have publicly promoted recycling, despite from almost the beginning privately expressing doubts that widespread plastic recycling would ever be economically viable. This reporting collaboration involving NPR and Frontline resulted in a Frontline film Plastic Wars, radio stories on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered and the Planet Money podcast episode.
Listen here
Listen to the winning episode and other Planet Money stories on recycling
Congratulations to everyone who worked in this series!
"Waste Land"
NPR Investigations Team
Correspondent: Laura Sullivan
Senior Producer: Graham Smith
Producer: Cat Schuknecht
Assistant Producer: Huo Jingnan
Researcher: Barbara Van Woerkom
Editors: Bruce Auster, Steve Drummond, Robert Little
Planet Money
Host: Sarah Gonzalez
Executive Producer: Alex Goldmark
Producer: Darian Woods
Assistant Producer: James Sneed
Editors: Robert Smith, Sarah Gonzalez, Bryant Urstadt
PBS Frontline
Executive Producer: Raney Aronson-Rath
Managing Editor: Andrew Metz
Producer: Rick Young
Co-Producers: Fritz Kramer, Emma Schwartz
Reporter: Fira Abdurachman
Reporting Fellow: Orion Donovan Smith
Also among this year's recipients are NPR's public broadcasting brethren PBS, and Member stations KOSU and WNYC. Information about all of the winners announced this year is available at: www.dupont.org Congratulations to them all!
Founded in 1942, the duPont-Columbia Awards uphold the highest standards in journalism by honoring winners annually, informing the public about those journalists' contributions and supporting journalism education and innovation.
NPR's Investigations Team is made up of more than a dozen correspondents, producers and editors who create original news stories for all of the network's audio and digital platforms. With a mission to report distinctive stories of consequence, the team has uncovered and produced some of NPR's most distinguished journalism, including winners of multiple Peabody Awards, DuPont-Columbia Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.