Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol, a harrowing first-person account of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, won the best documentary Oscar on Sunday night. Statuettes were awarded to Chernov, producer and editor Michelle Mizner and producer Raney Aronson-Rath. The Oscar — and nomination — was a first for both Chernov, an AP video journalist, and the 178-year-old news organization. This was the third nomination and first win for Frontline. Pictured: Raney Aronson-Rath (center), l-r: Vasilisa Stepanenko, Mstyslav Chernov, Evgeniy Maloletka, Michelle Mizner and Derl McCrudden accept the award for best documentary feature film. (Chris Pizzello/AP)
The new feature film “20 Days in Mariupol” from The Associated Press and Frontline, the award-winning PBS documentary series housed at WGBH Boston, will make its world premiere at the […]
Exclusives
The RFK Journalism Grand Prize went to Newsy for its documentary, A Broken Trust. The Seigenthaler Prize, which recognizes reporting under difficult circumstances requiring great courage and commitment, was given to PBS’s Frontline / Channel 4 / ITN Productions for its film, For Sama.
The $4 million project, funded by the Knight Foundation and Corporation for Public Broadcasting, supports local reporting teams financially and with expertise from people at Frontline.
The Knight Foundation says it will invest $300 million in local journalism over the next five years. Among the beneficiaries are the American Journalism Project, which provides grants to local nonprofit news organizations; the investigative site ProPublica; Report for America, a service organization that pays for the hiring of local journalists; and PBS’s Frontline, the documentary program that’s making its first foray into local news.
Thanks to Facebook-first films, YouTube releases and audience engagement initiatives, 70% of Frontline’s web visitors are between 18 and 49. “We’re still a big PBS broadcast, we absolutely are, and we’re also a big streaming film series online,” says the show’s executive producer, Raney Aronson. “The moment it airs, it’s digital.”
‘Frontline’ Expands Into Multi-Part Series
PBS’s venerable documentary franchise Frontline is expanding into multi-part investigative series, exec producer Raney Aronson told reporters Sunday during PBS’s portion of the Television Critics Association’s press tour.
The annual IRE Awards recognize outstanding investigative work and help identify the techniques and resources used to complete each story. This year’s winners included WVUE New Orleans and KHOU Houston. Other TV winners included Telemundo, The Weather Channel and PBS Frontline.
The award for television reporting went to correspondent Holly Williams and cameraman Andrew Portch from CBS News for their work uncovering human rights abuses in China. The award for documentary television reporting was won by PBS’s Frontline correspondent Martin Smith and producer Michael Kirk for a four-part series on the origins of the global financial crisis and the continuing impact it is having around the world.
Others taking home trophies include Portlandia, The Simpsons, Mad Men, Modern Family, Hatfields and McCoys, Game Change, The Tony Awards, The Young & the Restless, Frontline and Nova.
PBS officials say hackers have cracked the network’s website, posting a phony story claiming dead rapper Tupac Shakur was alive in New Zealand, and a group that claimed responsibility for the hacking complained about a recent Frontline investigative news program on WikiLeaks.
