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Awards And Certifications From December 22 - January 2

Detroit Public TV Wins DuPont-Columbia Award: The Columbia University Journalism School has awarded Detroit Public Television's groundbreaking documentary "Beyond The Light Switch" an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award. Produced in partnership with Scientific American magazine and aired around the country, the production took a new, in-depth look at the controversy and urgency surrounding the challenge of developing a new infrastructure for electricity in the United States. For 70 years, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards have recognized excellence in broadcast journalism. Regarded today as the most prestigious prizes in broadcast news, the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prizes, the duPont-Columbia Awards bring the best in broadcast and digital journalism to professional and public attention and honor those who produce it. The duPont-Columbia Awards engender a collective spirit for the industry and inform the public of the contributions news organizations make to their communities and to the world. The two-hour documentary premiered nationally in April 2011 and aired in all of the 20 largest markets in the United States and 92 percent of the Top 50 markets.  It has been available to one hundred million households in the U.S. and has been broadcast nearly 2500 times on television. The broadcast is two hours long and has been screened by museums, universities and science centers around the country. The production of the documentary has also generated more than 100 hours of video assets that have been used separately in videos on the web including www.beyondthelightswitch.com. Produced by Detroit Public Television's Ed Moore and guided by an independent advisory panel convened by the University of Michigan-Dearborn, "Beyond The Light Switch" is hosted by David Biello, energy and environment associate editor at Scientific American.  He takes viewers to a first-of-its-kind coal plant in West Virginia, gas wells in Pennsylvania and Texas, inside a nuclear reactor under construction in Tennessee, to wind farms along the Hood River Valley in Oregon and to the shores of Cape Cod, among other places around the country that showcase the options for our energy future. The documentary states that by 2050, experts say the United States must turn over nearly its entire electric power plant fleet, cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent and completely update its power grid. All of this must happen while demand for electricity is expected to rise by 30 percent. The documentary explores the possible paths forward including coal, natural gas, renewables, natural gas, solar, the "super grid" and others to determine what achieves the goals, creates jobs and gains a measure of energy security.

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