UC Berkeley Journalism alums were honored in the National Headliner Awards, one of the oldest and largest annual awards competitions, for extraordinary print, online, television, radio and photographic journalism in the news industry.
More than 1,000 entries were received for this year’s competition that covered journalism published in 2025.
From top left: Jamie Goldberg (‘13), Becca Andrews (’15), Susie Neilson (’19), Bill Whitaker (class of ’78 & ’17), Lucas Waldron (‘17) and Maggie Beidelman (’13).
Becca Andrews (’15) won in the narrative podcast category for “American Shrapnel” for Alabama Media Group about serial bomber Eric Rudolph’s terror and the rise of anger in America. “American Shrapnel,” written and hosted by John Archibald and Becca Andrews and produced by John Hammontree, is an eight-part narrative podcast that traces Rudolph through the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996, through the Birmingham abortion clinic bombing two years later and, ultimately, the largest manhunt in American history.
Judges’ Comments: “A first-hand account of how a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tracked a story of murder and destruction. A look behind the curtain that’s behind the curtain. The basics of how an investigation is conducted. Well suited to the podcast medium with strong natural sound and scene building.”
Susie Neilson (’19) was on the team that won the top prize in the 10- to 30-minute news video category for “The new housing crisis” about victims of California wildfires who learn their homeowners insurance won’t cover the cost to rebuild, for the San Francisco Chronicle. Working alongside reporters Megan Fan Munce and Neilson, Chronicle photojournalist Brontë Wittpenn revealed that insurance companies have knowingly been underinsuring clients, leaving them unprotected and facing a secondary crisis after disaster strikes. Maggie Beidelman (’13) was the supervising producer and provided Additional Camera work.
Neilson (’19) shared the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting with Megan Fan Munce and Sara DiNatale for their San Francisco Chronicle series “Burned,” the print component of this investigation.
Judges’ Comments: “Beautifully filmed with compelling and emotional interviews, the film combines the best of cinematic filmmaking and traditional journalism to identify a major culprit that robs communities of their most precious asset: their resilience.”
Lucas Waldron (‘17) was on the ProPublica team that won second place in the newspaper public service category (outside of the top-20 media markets) for “Slow Justice,” a story about the inordinate amount of time it takes to adjudicate felony cases in Alaska. Waldron won the award with fellow reporters Kyle Hopkins, Marc Lester and Zisiga Mukulu, in collaboration with the Anchorage Daily News.
(Nicole Rifkin for ProPublica)
©2025 CBS Broadcasting Inc.
Bill Whitaker (class of ’78 & ’17) won second place in the TV network investigative reporting category for “The Mystery of the Eagle S” for “60 Minutes,” about a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker that dragged its anchor and broke critical undersea internet and electricity cables in 2024. An investigation that spanned seven months revealed this was not an isolated case of suspected sabotage in the Baltic Sea. The episode was produced by former Investigative Reporting Program and PBS “Frontline” producer Oriana Zill de Granados (UC Berkeley BS in Political Science and Government ’89) and Emily Gordon of CBS News.
View this post on Instagram
Jamie Goldberg (’13), politics and education editor at The Oregonian, was awarded third place in the newspapers investigative reporting category (outside of the top 20 media markets) for “Hawaiian perks,” published by The Oregonian. Her investigation exposed how Washington County sewer officials scored annual Hawaii trips and 5-star lodging. Goldberg’s investigation prompted the sewer agency’s CEO to resign, led the sewer board to move the agency’s insurance company out of Hawaii, ending annual trips there, and prompted a raft of other reforms at the agency.