VOL. 23, NO. 12	JANUARY 23, 1998

President George Rupp congratulates David Fanning, senior executive producer of Frontline, which won the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton at the duPont-Columbia Awards in Low Jan. 14. Record Photo by Joe Pineiro.

rontline, the public television news documentary series, won the Gold Baton, the highest honor of the annual Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Awards, in a nationally-televised ceremony in Low Rotunda Jan. 14.

  "Without cynicism or sensation, Frontline covers many of the issues that try our patience and test our way of life," President George Rupp said in presenting the prize to David Fanning, senior executive producer. "The series demonstrates remarkable quality and sustained commitment to controversial and sensitive stories, investigative reporting and political coverage on the Public Broadcasting Service."

Dean Tom Goldstein. Record Photo by Joe Pineiro.

  Tom Goldstein, dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and chairman of the awards jury, called journalism an "idealist's profession," as did the first duPont-Columbia report decades ago. "Any consumer of broadcast news today," he said, "knows there is a large and regrettable quality gap between the best and the work-a-day. This is all the more frustrating because we know how awfully good broadcasting can be. The duPont-Columbia Awards are meant to stimulate the best in broadcasting. These extraordinary accomplishments of the past year give us much hope for the future."

  Christiane Amanpour, senior international correspondent for CNN, hosted the awards ceremony, marking the awards' 56th year.

Christiane Amanpour.

  The program was televised Jan. 15 on PBS stations nationwide by Thirteen/WNET, New York.

  The Silver Batons were presented by John Hockenberry, correspondent for Dateline NBC; Cynthia McFadden, ABC News correspondent for PrimeTime Live, and Hedrick Smith, executive producer and correspondent on Surviving the Bottom Line on PBS stations this month.

  The 11 winners, in addition to the Gold Baton, follow: Silver Batons: Wisconsin Public Television for Welcome to Poverty Hollow; The Center for New American Media for Vote for Me: Politics in America on PBS; ABC News for PrimeTime Live: Debt Reckoning; KUSC Radio, Los Angeles, for Marketplace on Public Radio International; NBC News and Scripps Howard News Productions for Why Can't We Live Together?; KTCA, St. Paul, for NewsNight Minnesota: Unisys; CBS News for Enter the Jury Room; Blowback Productions for CIA: America's Secret Warriors on Discovery Channel; WABC-TV, New York, for Room 104: The Overcrowding Crisis; Jon Else, Sandra Itkoff and Marc Reisner for An American Nile on PBS, and KCET, Los Angeles and the BBC, for The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century on PBS.