FRONTLINE Editor-in-Chief and Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath Honored with John Chancellor Excellence in Journalism Award

THU., SEPT. 19 — Columbia Journalism Faculty introduced that Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and government producer of FRONTLINE has been named the winner of the 2024 John Chancellor Excellence in Journalism Award. 

Over a profession spanning greater than 25 years in journalism — as a reporter, producer, correspondent and now on the helm of FRONTLINE, the award-winning PBS documentary sequence produced at GBH in Boston — Aronson-Rath’s “accomplishments have earned her the business’s highest reward,” Columbia famous. The celebrated John Chancellor Award is offered yearly to a journalist “with braveness and integrity for cumulative skilled accomplishments.”

Raney Aronson-Rath main a gathering in FRONTLINE’s newsroom at GBH in Boston, Might 2015. (Credit score: Erik Jacobs for The New York Instances)

“I’m profoundly honored and humbled by this recognition and grateful to each Columbia Journalism Faculty and the John Chancellor Award committee for acknowledging my journey as a journalist,” says Aronson-Rath. “To all of the journalists and filmmakers who’ve impressed, collaborated, and supported me: thanks. I share this award with you. I’m additionally grateful to the devoted journalists and employees at FRONTLINE, in addition to my colleagues at GBH, PBS, and CPB.”

In her function as editor-in-chief and government producer of FRONTLINE, Aronson-Rath oversees the acclaimed sequence’ investigative reporting and editorial imaginative and prescient, government producing greater than 20 in-depth documentaries annually on crucial points dealing with the USA and the world.

“Audiences hardly ever see producers’ faces or know their names, however they work tirelessly behind-the-scenes. For over twenty years, Raney has produced vital and revolutionary programming for hundreds of thousands of FRONTLINE viewers. Immediately, the PBS sequence is extra related and vital than ever due to her management,” says dean of Columbia Journalism Faculty and member of the Chancellor Board, Jelani Cobb.

Raney Aronson-Rath recording for The FRONTLINE Dispatch, FRONTLINE’s authentic podcast sequence, September 2017. (Credit score: FRONTLINE)

Together with her management, Aronson-Rath has pushed the boundaries of the PBS documentary sequence and brought it to new heights. She spearheaded FRONTLINE’s growth into theatrical documentaries, incomes an Academy Award® for FRONTLINE and The Related Press’ 2023 feature-length documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol; launched the sequence’ first authentic podcast, The FRONTLINE Dispatch; led an ongoing cost for transparency in journalism as an antidote to misinformation with the Transparency Challenge; and experimented with new and revolutionary methods to inform tales by digital actuality, augmented actuality and interactive documentaries.

Guided by public media’s mission to coach and inform the American public, Aronson-Rath has additionally made FRONTLINE’s storytelling extra accessible than ever. Immediately, the sequence reaches hundreds of thousands of viewers on YouTube.

ProPublica’s Steve Engelberg describes Aronson-Rath as “a journalist’s journalist, devoted at the beginning to getting the story exactly proper … (with) a singular expertise for turning advanced topics into visually arresting, nuanced movies.” ProPublica is a frequent and trusted editorial associate of FRONTLINE’s and most lately collaborated on the award-winning documentary Contained in the Uvalde Response.

“So long as I’ve identified her, Raney has impressed me as an individual of extraordinary intelligence, diligence, and professionalism, wholly devoted to the moral gathering and dissemination of reports,” says Trilogy Movies’ Daybreak Porter, who served as an government producer on FRONTLINE and Retro Report’s 2022 documentary American Reckoning and multiplatform undertaking Un(re)solved.

Raney Aronson-Rath reporting in India for FRONTLINE World in 2004. (Credit score: Niels Alpert)

“Raney’s clear-eyed editorial path for FRONTLINE, paired along with her deep appreciation for the facility of journalism, enriches the tales we’re in a position to share with our public media audiences,” says Susan Goldberg, president and CEO of GBH. “On behalf of the whole GBH group, we congratulate her on this well-earned recognition.”

“We’re extraordinarily proud that Raney is being honored for her distinctive contributions to journalism. Beneath her management, FRONTLINE has reached new heights, constructing revolutionary fashions for partnerships and collaboration to make clear crucial problems with the day,” says Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS. “What impresses me most of all is Raney’s fixed, unrelenting dedication to evolution, pushing the boundaries for journalism within the digital age whereas nonetheless delivering journalism of the very best high quality. Congratulations to Raney on this well-deserved honor.”

Raney Aronson-Rath reporting for The Each day Cardinal on the College of Wisconsin, Madison. (Credit score: Peter Barreras. 1990.)

An Oscar-winning producer and a member of the Academy of Movement Footage Arts & Sciences, Aronson-Rath additionally obtained the New York Ladies in Movie & Tv’s Enid Roth Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Company for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award earlier this 12 months. In 2022, she was acknowledged with the New England First Modification Coalition’s Stephen Hamblett Award.

Previous John Chancellor Award recipients embrace NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams, ProPublica’s Ginger Thompson, The New Yorker’s Masha Gessen, and FRONTLINE producers Martin Smith and Ofra Bikel.

Raney Aronson-Rath whereas reporting for The Wall Avenue Journal/Dow Jones in 1996. (Credit score: Peter Barreras)

The John Chancellor Award honors the legacy of pioneering tv correspondent and longtime NBC Information Anchor John Chancellor, greatest remembered for his distinguished reporting on civil rights, politics and election campaigns. Chosen by a committee of eight distinguished journalists, Raney Aronson-Rath will obtain the 2024 award with a $25,000 honorarium.

The award might be offered at a ceremony held by Columbia Journalism Faculty on Nov. 14, 2024.

PRESS CONTACT: Anne Husted, Affiliate Director of Publicity, Communications & Awards, FRONTLINE | [email protected] | 617.300.5312