FRONTLINE Podcasts Nominated for Four Inaugural Ambies Awards

This week, podcasts from the investigative news outlet FRONTLINE were honored with four nominations — one for The FRONTLINE Dispatch and three for I’m Not A Monster — in the inaugural Ambies Awards, the Podcast Academy’s awards recognizing excellence in audio.

“We’re thrilled to have both our original audio series The FRONTLINE Dispatch and our collaborative series with the BBC, I’m Not A Monster, recognized by the Podcast Academy,” says FRONTLINE Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath. “Congratulations to our in-house podcast team — Max Green, James Edwards and Lucie Sullivan — as well as to Josh Baker and our partners at BBC Sounds and BBC Panorama on this exciting recognition.”

The FRONTLINE Dispatch, which over the past year has offered in-depth and candid conversations between Aronson-Rath and journalists in the field, was nominated for “Best Interview Podcast.” The series has previously been honored with a Webby People’s Choice Award and was part of the body of work cited in FRONTLINE’s most recent Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Gold Baton. The FRONTLINE Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation Journalism Initiative, produced at GBH in Boston and powered by PRX.

I’m Not A Monster, FRONTLINE’s 10-part podcast series in collaboration with BBC Sounds and BBC Panorama, was nominated for “Best Documentary Podcast” award (a top honor), as well as for “Best True Crime Podcast” and “Best Reporting.”

Hosted, written and reported by Josh Baker, the series follows his years-long reporting expedition to uncover the truth about an American family’s journey from Indiana to the self-proclaimed ISIS caliphate and back. I’m Not A Monster is produced by Max Green and Joe Kent and the production assistant is Lucie Sullivan.

“I’m hugely grateful for the recognition I’m Not A Monster is getting. It’s nominated alongside podcasts that I love and admire,” says Baker. “It was a huge team effort and I’m really proud to see how popular and well received the show has been in America as well as the U.K.”

According to the website for the Ambies, these new audio awards are aimed to “celebrate excellence in podcasting and elevate awareness and status of podcasts as a unique and personal medium for entertainment, information, storytelling and expression.”

The first annual Ambies Awards ceremony will be held virtually on Sunday, May 16, 2021 live from Los Angeles, California. You can read a full list of this year’s nominees here.

You can listen to The FRONTLINE Dispatch and I’m Not A Monster on pbs.org/frontline, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.