PBS FRONTLINE collaboration “The Card Game” Wins National Press Club Honors

Frontline’s “The Card Game,” has won the Broadcast Consumer Journalism category in the National Press Club’s Awards competition. The program was written and produced by Professor Lowell Bergman, director of the Investigative Reporting Program, and Oriana Zill de Granados. Marlena Telvick was an investigative reporter and assistant producer.

The National Press Club said the program is “an excellent piece of long-form television reporting, turning a story lacking good visuals into a compelling tale about industry practices that can skirt consumer protection laws and policymakers responding with tougher legislation. Although many stories were written on the collapse of credit markets and overhaul of financial-industry regulation, ‘The Card Game’ gave viewers a behind-the-scenes view into the decisions that helped contribute to the crisis. The program included interviews with the lobbyist for the financial services industry, top lawmakers, consumers who faced tighter credit and two industry experts credited with practices such as `free checking,’ offering their first public comments.”

“The Card Game” was produced out of the Investigative Reporting Program at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. Graduate students Huda Ahmed (’10), Adelaide Chen (’10), Shaleece Haas (’10), Linsay Rousseau Burnett (’10), Karen Weise (’10) and Ali Winston (’10) worked as researchers on the project. Alumni included the director of photography Zachary Stauffer (’08), web editor Jonathan Jones (’06), and production assistant Paul Gackle (’09). Benjamin Blink, the 2009 Isaacs-Wright Carleton College intern to the IRP contributed research.

Production facilities for “The Card Game” funded in part by The Reva and David Logan Foundation.