The State We're In won three medals at this year’s New York International Festival of Radio and Television – taking top honours in all three categories.
 
TSWI has recently added Seattle's KUOW to its partner list – they’re a radio industry leader in the US. The show has also just been picked up by NPR Dallas, the fifth-largest market in the US.

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Jonathan Groubert is the host of The State We're In

Photo: RNW

A cure for sex offenders? (broadcast 30 April 2011)
Producer: Chris Chambers

We speak with a convicted paedophile who served time for assaulting an 11-year-old girl. He tells host Jonathan Groubert about how he was arrested and jailed for his crime and how, in prison, he started to receive treatment with anti-libidinal drugs.

Now he has a job, and a fiancée who knows everything about his past. We also speak with the doctor who treated him, and sees him as a success. This particular show won top honours at the New York International Radio and Television Awards for Best Host as no gold was given out this year.

This program inspired Ira Glass, host of what’s arguably the most successful public radio program in the US - This American Life - to praise host Jonathan Groubert as one of the best hosts he’s heard anywhere.

Click to hear Ira Glass talk about TSWI (MP3)

Silver World Medal - News Reports/Features: “Heroes” (no gold awarded in this category)
A mother’s strength (broadcast 8 January 2011)
Producer: Greg Kelly

We talk with Nassera Dutour, who was featured in a documentary movie called Chanson Pour Amine, as part of the Movies That Matter Festival in The Hague. Her son, Amine Amrouch, was "disappeared" along with approximately 8,000 other young men by the Algerian government.

Nassera started a long, impassioned campaign to find him, and others like him. As she tells Jonathan, even though more than a decade has passed, she still sees her son in the faces of strangers on the streets of Algiers.

Bronze World Medal - National/International Affairs (no higher medals awarded in this category)
The art of smuggling (broadcast 20 March 2010)
Producer: Anik See

Who owns ancient art? On the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, we talk to a US Marine officer who had to convince his superiors and his team of the mission he wanted to pursue: tracking down stolen artifacts from Baghdad’s museum. We also speak with an ancient Egyptian art expert who makes no apology for smuggling treasures out of Egypt, where – he argues – they’ll fall victim to corrupt and incompetent officials. The two points of view clash throughout the program.