On Assignment - From the duPont-Columbia Awards

2019 duPont-Columbia winner Alexandra Shiva talks navigating language and cultural barriers to make a humorous and important film about refugees that transcends party lines.

3 Maj 201932min

We catch up with 2019 duPont award winning director Alexandria Bombach about her latest film, “On Her Shoulders.” It’s an achingly beautiful 3-month snapshot of the life of activist and Yazidi genocide survivor, Nadia Murad. But it’s also a call to action for journalists and filmmakers, to think about the stories we tell, how we tell them and most importantly, why.

29 Mars 201942min

2019 duPont-winning Directors Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir interviewed 14 eloquent, emotional rape survivors for “I Am Evidence,” but only four women’s stories made it into the film. Tune in to this episode to hear about the painstaking choices they had to make as they navigated finding, selecting and telling these stories with honesty, integrity and care.

1 Mars 201937min

Director Bing Liu started making “Minding the Gap,” when he was 23-years-old. Now, six years later, he’s premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and snagged himself an Oscar nomination. As the countdown to the Academy Awards begins, get a behind the scenes look at how Liu made the film, plus hear about some of his ethical dilemmas while filming. But before you listen, be warned. There will be spoilers.

1 Feb 201938min

NYT Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones talks to NBC News anchor Lester Holt about reporting on race, the perils of making things personal, and takeaways from her 2018 John Chancellor Award-winning excellent reporting.

4 Jan 201941min

Roger Ailes founded Fox News, kicked off #MeToo, and helped elect Donald Trump. “It was about using Roger's story to try to make sense of where we were as a country...it gave us a point of entry to a difficult complicated national moment,” says Producer Will Cohen. In this episode of On Assignment, Cohen discusses navigating Fox News for access, the challenge of profiling a dead man, and how Ailes influenced the current media and political climate.

30 Nov 201827min

“RBG” Directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West plus Executive Producer Amy Entelis talk the power of optimism, the challenging rules for filming in the Supreme Court, and how RBG herself reacted to seeing the film for the first time in front of a sold out audience at Sundance.

26 Okt 201840min

When you spend 15 years on a story, you tend to get so close to your sources, they sometimes get jealous: “They felt as if I was in some ways cheating on them by talking with other people.” Lukas Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson talks about how to navigate source relationships in her immersive book “The Warmth of Other Suns”. Isabel Wilkerson’s award winning epic tells the stories of three people who’ve never met, but whose experiences with the Great Migration from the South to the North

28 Sep 201840min