The National Headliner Awards announced nearly 90 first-place winners across print, online, television, radio and photography divisions May 5, at the 92nd annual competition held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, recognizing journalism published in 2025.
The awards program received more than 1,000 entries competing for recognition in categories spanning newspapers, digital media, magazines, photojournalism, television and radio journalism. ABC News and Chicago Public Media led all organizations with 12 first-place awards each, while NBC News, including CNBC, and The Philadelphia Inquirer each earned 11 first-place honors. National Public Radio received six awards in the competition, which was founded by the Press Club of Atlantic City in 1934.
Best of Show medallions recognized standout journalism across all divisions. Photographer Carol Guzy of the Miami Herald won the photography award for a portfolio documenting immigration detention, with judges praising the work for its emotional impact. The Baltimore Banner‘s “Missing the Bus” series won Best of Show in the online division for investigative reporting on school transportation failures, while Bloomberg‘s yearlong investigation into defective Tesla electronic door mechanisms won the print division’s top honor. A documentary titled “In the Shadows with Jason Bellini: Drone War Medics” from Scripps News captured Best of Show television honors for reporting from Ukrainian combat medic units, and KJZZ-FM, a Phoenix public broadcaster, earned the radio award for coverage of a proposed copper mine in an Arizona tribal region.
Judges praised Guzy‘s immigration detention photographs for their human dimension, stating her work “showed ICE detention methods, but with each action she showed the loss and heartbreak instilled in the families of the detainees.” Bloomberg‘s investigation drew recognition for accountability journalism with profound real-world impact: “Federal investigations opened. Legislation was introduced. Industrywide design changes followed,” judges said. “That’s the full arc of accountability journalism, and this team ran it all the way out.” The Scripps News documentary was commended as “exceptionally produced under active combat conditions” and described as setting “the bar for documentary filmmaking in a war zone.” KJZZ‘s copper mine series was cited for demonstrating “a respect for the community and the topic” in examining a project with significant economic, environmental and spiritual implications.
The awards reflect the podcast and audio industry’s broader emphasis on investigative storytelling and public service journalism. KJZZ‘s radio series win and WBEZ Chicago‘s multiple awards underscore the continued relevance of radio and public broadcasting in producing original, deeply reported audio journalism. The recognition of Scripps News‘s multimedia documentary approach, meanwhile, demonstrates how podcast producers and audio journalists increasingly collaborate with video and visual storytelling to reach audiences across platforms.
The Headliner Awards come at a time when news organizations face economic pressures and declining advertising revenue. Recognition programs such as this serve to highlight journalism that advances public knowledge and accountability, particularly investigations requiring substantial resources. The awards span organizations of varying sizes, from major network operations to nonprofit news outlets and regional newspapers, signaling that quality journalism continues across the industry despite financial headwinds.
The competition included categories for breaking news, beat reporting, international coverage, news series, features, opinion writing and sports journalism. The San Antonio Express-News, Austin American-Statesman and Houston Chronicle jointly won breaking news honors for coverage of a Texas flood disaster, while WBEZ Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times won first place for local news beat reporting on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies. The Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism won the international news beat category for a series examining the Trump administration’s impact on African foreign aid, achieved by a small team of part-time journalists and freelancers working with limited resources.
The National Headliner Awards recognition underscores the value placed on investigative reporting, data journalism and multimedia storytelling in contemporary news organizations. For podcasters and audio producers, the strong showing by public radio stations and the multimedia approach of television documentaries demonstrate that sophisticated audio journalism increasingly competes with video and print formats. The awards suggest that news organizations pursuing deep, original reporting across multiple platforms—including podcasts, radio, digital media and streaming video—are earning industry recognition and advancing public understanding of consequential issues ranging from immigration enforcement to infrastructure and environmental concerns.
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