Members of Michigan Radio’s news team were in New York on Jan. 25 accepting the station’s first Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. Michigan Radio received the prestigious award for the documentary, Not Safe to Drink.
The Not Safe To Drink documentary traced the story of the Flint water crisis. The documentary helped bring the water crisis to national attention and pursued the state agencies’ cover up of Flint’s lead poisoning. The documentary first aired on Michigan Radio in December, 2015 and later also aired nationally. Not Safe to Drink was reported and produced by Lindsey Smith and edited by Sarah Hulett, with reporting help from Michigan Radio‘s Steve Carmody, Rebecca Williams and Mark Brush and editing help from Jennifer Guerra.
Michigan Radio was one of fourteen national winners of the 2017 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards. Public broadcasting had three other award winners: the PBS program FRONTLINE for their Syria and Iraq reporting, NOVA’s dazzling yet disturbing look at the impact of global warming, and NPR/Colorado Public Radio for their joint exposé on the Army’s mistreatment of disabled veterans.
Since the founding in 1942, the duPont Awards have honored accurate and fair reporting about important issues that are powerfully told. The winning pieces are selected by the duPont jury from hundreds of entries. The 2017 duPont Awards ceremony was co-hosted by Lester Holt, ?anchor of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and Dateline, and Jane Pauley?, host of CBS News Sunday Morning.
