Earlier this 12 months, due to its impactful reporting, the Spotify Original podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s gained an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. Now the collection is including the distinguished Pulitzer and Peabody awards to its record. Stolen is the primary podcast collection to win each a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award in the identical 12 months.
Photo credit score: Robert McGee
“Honestly, I’ve been pinching myself over this news. It is such an incredible honor for our work on Surviving St. Michael’s to receive this recognition. It feels like proof that Indigenous stories matter and that Indigenous people should be supported to help tell them,” stated Connie Walker, an Okanese First Nation (Cree) investigative reporter and the host of Stolen. “Above all, our team hopes that this means that more people will hear the stories of the survivors who bravely shared their experiences with us and recognize that this is just the beginning in terms of what it means to learn the truth and try to collectively grow and heal from our past.”
Connie and Spotify’s Gimlet Media staff had been awarded a 2023 Pulitzer Prize within the Audio Reporting class. The Pulitzer Prize marks excellence within the fields of newspaper, journal, on-line journalism, literature, and musical composition.
Peabody Awards are additionally a terrific honor, given to essentially the most highly effective, enlightening, and invigorating tales in tv, radio, and on-line media. Stolen gained within the Podcast and Radio class.
“It’s an honor to receive any recognition for the work our teams produce at Spotify, but for Stolen to achieve the highest level of recognition with both a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody is an incredible feat,” shared Julie McNamara, Head of Global Podcast Studios at Spotify. “Connie has given a voice to the victims of Canada’s Indian residential schools and to Indigenous communities. She and the Gimlet team worked tirelessly to earn the respect of the victims in order to tell their stories and offer a path toward healing and hope. We’re incredibly proud of Connie and the entire Stolen team.”
Photo credit score: Connie Walker
Stolen follows Connie as she appears to be like into her father’s harrowing experiences at a Canadian residential college within the Sixties. Throughout the season, she uncovers deep abuses by the hands of college directors that led to childhood demise and maturity trauma—outcomes that weren’t distinctive to St. Michael’s.
The podcast additionally obtained an honorable point out on the Dart Awards, which acknowledges excellent reporting in all media that portrays traumatic occasions and their aftermath with accuracy, perception, and sensitivity whereas illuminating the results of violence and tragedy on victims’ lives.
This fall, the third season of Stolen will take listeners to the Navajo Nation as Connie and staff examine the case of two lacking Navajo ladies. “It’s huge—27,000 square miles of remote terrain with fewer than 200 tribal police officers,” defined Connie. “One thing I’ve learned so far is that on the Navajo Nation, the line between missing and murdered is often difficult to prove. In many ways, this season builds on the themes we’ve explored in previous seasons, but hopefully in a way that feels different and exciting to our listeners.”
While you’re ready for the brand new season, we advocate revisiting Season 1, Stolen: The Search for Jermain, which lately revealed an episode detailing new developments to the story.