Multimedia Journalist of the Year
Whitney Shefte, The Washington Post
Portfolio
- Born into war: Inside a Ukrainian maternity hospital
- As the shells fall, one woman struggles to bury her husband
- Armed patrols, homemade dumplings: Ordinary Ukrainians join the war effort
- Pregnant and homeless: Ripple effects of abortion limits
- Pushing evangelicals into politics to create ‘a Biblically-based culture’
- Life under Russian occupation: How she lost her husband
- Ukrainians speak of sorrow, rape and suspicion under Russian occupation
News Story
First - The Washington Post: "Born into war: Inside a Ukrainian maternity hospital"
Second - The Washington Post: "As the shells fall, one woman struggles to bury her husband"
Third - The Washington Post: "Armed patrols, homemade dumplings: Ordinary Ukrainians join the war effort"
Award of Excellence - BBC: "No tree or gifts for thousands in this US city"
Continuing News and Issue Reporting
First - The Washington Post: "Fentanyl overtakes San Diego’s streets"
Second - The Washington Post: "They were poisoned"
Third - BBC: "One mother’s mission to ban vulgar books"
Award of Excellence - BBC: "Where will abortion seekers go after Roe?"
Award of Excellence - The Washington Post: "Pregnant and homeless: Ripple effects of abortion limits"
Politics Story
First - The Washington Post: "Pushing evangelicals into politics to create 'a Biblically-based culture'"
Feature Story
First - BBC: "Families of Parkland victims wrestle with what justice means"
Second - The Washington Post: "Life under Russian occupation: How she lost her husband"
Third - BBC: "Every student is a mother at this Texas high school"
Explainer
First - The Washington Post: "What Breonna Taylor’s killing reveals about police use of no-knock warrants"
Second - The Washington Post: "Why it’s still hard to come forward 5 years after #MeToo"
Third - The Washington Post: "Understanding the shift from plant-based to synthetic drugs"
Animation
There were no awards given in this category in 2023.
Social/Mobile
First - NPR: "Alt Latino series"
Producers: Keren Carrión, Estefania Mitre and Zayrha Rodriguez
Series Editor: John Poole
Supervising Editor: Nicole Werbeck
Second - NPR: "Newscast series"
Third - NPR: "Astrology"
Award of Excellence - NPR: "Dear Life Kit series"
Documentary or Series
First - The Washington Post: "Inside the investigation of an officer who killed a teen threatening suicide"
Best Digital Storytelling Package
First - The Washington Post: "How Ukrainian children understand the war"
Second - The Washington Post: "The Ones Who Made It"
Third - The Washington Post: "How Shireen Abu Akleh was killed"
Award of Excellence - The Washington Post: "The Colorado River is in crisis, and it's getting worse every day"
Award of Excellence - The Washington Post: "Ukrainians speak of sorrow, rape and suspicion under Russian occupation"
2023 Digital Storytelling Contest Judges
Yara Bishara is currently a Senior Producer at NBC News where she helps oversee a team of award-winning video journalists producing short documentaries that air across NBC News Digital, NBC News NOW, Peacock, Today, NBC Nightly News, and MSNBC. Her team most recently produced, “Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary,” a documentary that sheds light on the experience of a transgender teenager and his family as they make the hard decision to leave their home in Texas after his own gender-affirming care was temporarily paused. The documentary had its world premiere at the DOC NYC film festival as part of the Meet the Press Film Festival in November and the documentary is now streaming on Peacock.
Prior to joining NBC News, Yara was supervising producer at The New Yorker where she helped oversee the magazine’s award-winning documentary and scripted programming, development, and acquisitions which earned their fictional short film showcase, “The Screening Room,” two Academy Award nominations (note: the nominations were for two films that were acquired by the magazine — they were not originally produced or developed). Yara started her career on the breaking news video desk at The New York Times where her interactive piece, Anatomy of an Airstrike, was a Livingston Award finalist for international reporting.
Yara is a graduate of The George Washington University and is currently an MBA candidate at NYU Stern. She was recently named Forbes 30 Under 30 in the media category among others in her field that are revolutionizing the industry. Born in Haifa, Israel, she is Palestinian and immigrated to Brooklyn when she was 10 years old with her parents and younger brother.
Jon Bougher is a documentary filmmaker and co-owner of Eastward Films, a video production company headquartered in Washington. He has worked in over fifteen countries on video projects, including three years living and working in Haiti. His film work has been featured on CNN International, NPR and The Today Show, screened at festivals across the United States and twice received special screenings on Capitol Hill.
Through his company, he has directed branded content for advocacy organizations including Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, United Nations Foundation, Disney Conservation Fund, and many others. He earned his MFA in Documentary Film from Wake Forest University.
Lauren Frohne is a visual journalist and digital leader who works collaboratively across departments and produces award-winning, innovative video stories, documentary films, and interactive digital projects. She currently leads the video team at The Seattle Times – NPPA Multimedia Team of the year in 2020 and 2021 and winner of the 2019 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence.
Before joining The Seattle Times in 2014, Lauren was the multimedia producer for the Open Society Foundations and a video journalist for The Boston Globe. As a Roy H. Park Fellow, she earned a master’s degree in journalism with a focus on visual communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010. Lauren has been a featured speaker and teacher at visual storytelling workshops and conferences, including WKU’s Mountain Workshops, Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, NPPA Women in Visual Journalism, Story Arc cinematic journalism workshop, and has been a faculty member of the NPPA Multimedia Immersion workshop since 2013.
