Connie Walker, a Cree journalist from Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, is shown in an undated handout photo. Walker has won the Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting for the podcast "Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's," an investigation into her father's abuse at a residential school. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Connie Walker *MANDATORY CREDIT*
Canadian journalist Connie Walker has won a Peabody Award and the Pulitzer Prize, over the course of just 24 hours.
She won the Pulitzer’s audio reporting award last night and the Peabody’s podcast award this afternoon for the Gimlet Media podcast “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s,” an investigation into her father’s abuse at a residential school.
Walker, who is from Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, tracked down priests from St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, Sask. and spoke with survivors, including her aunts and uncles, about what happened decades ago.
The Pulitzer citation describes the podcast as “a personal search for answers expertly blended with rigorous investigative reporting.”
Walker, a former CBC journalist, says that while the podcast started with the personal, it expanded into a much larger story about residential school survivors and the legacy of intergenerational trauma.
She says she hopes more people listen to the survivors’ stories as a result of the awards.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2023.
