Connie Walker and her team at Spotify’s Gimlet Media win best audio journalism for Stolen: Getting through St. Michael’
The world’s top journalism award went to a First Nations woman from Saskatchewan who wrote about her father’s time in a residential school.
Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, The Pulitzer Prize for best audio journalism in 2023 went to a podcast by journalist Connie Walker and the team at Spotify’s Gimlet Media.
“I feel like I’m still in shock. It’s disbelief. It’s so important. “It’s a huge honor,” said Walker on Monday.
“I think of all the brave people who told us these stories. These stories should be known by everyone. They will be heard by more people now.”
Walker used to be a reporter for the CBC, but now he works for Gimlet Media in New York. She is from the southern Saskatchewan Okanese First Nation.
Betty Ann Adam, who is from the Fond du Lac Denesuline Nation in northern Saskatchewan and used to work for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, was on Walker’s team.
Walker said that it’s important to know about the history and stories of Indigenous communities and that more and more Indigenous people are telling these stories themselves.
“Our stories do matter,” she told him.
Walker said that Adam’s care for survivors and Chantelle Bellrichard’s determination to find thousands of pages of documents for the project inspired her.
Walker said that she has been on the phone all day with her team, her siblings, and other family members. She was reached by phone in Seattle.
“It’s been going non-stop,” she said.”Lots of happy tears.”
The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Associated Press all won awards in other categories that were announced on Monday.