Gimlet Media’s Connie Walker honoured with Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting

Investigative journalist Connie Walker and the Gimlet Media team behind Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting.

An exploration of the impact of abuse at St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, SK, which Walker’s own father attended, she was previously recognized with a First Amendment Award from RTDNA in the U.S., recognizing journalists who stand for the values of the First Amendment and responsible journalism.

“Awarded to the Staff of Gimlet Media, notably Connie Walker, whose investigation into her father’s troubled past revealed a larger story of abuse of hundreds of Indigenous children at an Indian residential school in Canada, including other members of Walker’s extended family, a personal search for answers expertly blended with rigorous investigative reporting,” the Pulitzer citation reads.

Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s was also awarded Best Multi-Part Audio Documentary or Series at the IDA Documentary Awards and was a finalist for the Dupont-Columbia Awards. It was named one of the best podcasts of the year by The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire and Vulture.

Walker left the CBC after two decades in 2019 to join Gimlet Media. While still with the public broadcaster, she hosted two seasons of Missing & Murdered, examining cold cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

In addition to Walker, Canadian journalists who worked on Stolen include Betty Ann Adam and Chantelle Bellrichard, along with Gimlet Media producers Ellen Frankman, Anya Schultz, Max Green, Devon Taylor, and audio engineer Emma Mungen, among others.

“Winning a Pulitzer is something you dream of as a journalist, but never expect to achieve,” wrote Frankman, Stolen’s supervising producer in a post to Twitter. “And it’s the furthest thing from your mind when you are deep in the reporting and focused on your sources and the story. Needless to say, I’m in shock! And so grateful to Connie Walker, to the survivors who shared their stories with us and to our amazing team…And thankful to Gimlet Media and Spotify for creating space for these stories to be told and heard.”

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