PBS News Hour's Series "The Fall of Assad" Named duPont-Columbia Award Recipient

Arlington, VA (January 29, 2026) — PBS News Hour was named the recipient of a duPont-Columbia Award for its coverage of the days leading up to and immediately after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

This year's winners were announced at a live ceremony Wednesday night at Columbia's Lee C. Bollinger Forum. The Alfred I. du-Pont Columbia University Awards are administered by the Columbia Journalism School.

More on PBS News Hour's award-winning coverage:

With the stunning fall of the half-century Assad dictatorial dynasty, PBS News Hour had multiple correspondents in Syria as the country reckoned with nearly fifteen years of civil war and began charting a tenuous path toward the future.

Special correspondents Leila Molana-Allen and Simona Foltyn reported from Damascus, Homs, Aleppo, Latakia and points in between on what Syrians were thinking after a lightning-fast seizure of the nation by forces led by a group designated as terrorists by the United States.

The News Hour spoke with Syrians who have searched prisons for their loved ones; with refugees returning to their homes after years in exile; with men and women that the News Hour has met throughout its more than a decade of coverage in Syria; with leaders of the new government; and with fighters who helped depose the old regime.

The reports in "The Fall of Assad" include:

• Syrians describe living in the crossfire of a brutal civil war for 13 years 
• Syria's new leaders work to keep rebel factions united after overthrow of common enemy
• Freed Syrian prisoners describe the horrors they faced under Assad 
• Daily life in Syria begins to return as new leaders work on building a functioning nation
• Search continues for missing Syrians imprisoned by Assad regime
• City that fostered Syria's uprising celebrates life without Assad
• Amid new freedoms, Syrians face horrors at site of Assad's 2013 chemical weapons attack 
• Discovery of mass graves in Syria sheds new light on brutality of fallen Assad regime 
• How the Assad regime made billions producing and exporting party drugs 
• Syria's new rulers try to contain growing tensions involving Assadloyalists 

Credits:

Leila Molana-Allen, Special Correspondent; Simona Foltyn, Special Correspondent & Editor; Morgan Till, Senior Producer; Dan Sagalyn, Senior Producer; Zeba Warsi, Producer; Sonia Kopelev, Producer; Abdurazzaq Alshami, Producer; Lachlan Hyatt, Producer; Jeff Cook, Editor; Christie Smith, Editor; Hamada Hanoura, Editor; Jon Miles, Editor; Eric O'Connor, Videographer & Editor; Stuart Cohen, Editor; Ali Kamal Eddin, Videographer; Spero Haddad, Videographer; and Sara Just, Senior Executive Producer.