The Podcast Academy, the preeminent professional podcast organization, announced that award-winning reporter, radio host and podcast Sam Sanders, will receive the Impact Award, which recognizes an individual or podcast that has made a significant, positive effect on its listeners.
Previous recipients of the Impact Award include Ira Madison III (2024) and Teenager Therapy (2020). The honor will be bestowed upon him at the Fifth Annual Awards For Excellence in Audio (The Ambies), which will be hosted by multi-hyphenate comedian Tig Notaro, on Monday, March 31, at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago.
As previously announced, Ira Glass will receive this year’s Governor’s Award. The ceremony will be LIVE streamed by Amazon Music-Twitch from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. CST.
The Ambies celebrate excellence in podcasting and elevate awareness and status of podcasts as a unique and personal medium for entertainment, information, storytelling and expression. The ceremony will highlight 199 nominees across 28 categories with winners to be selected by every voting member of The Podcast Academy (TPA).
“Sam Sanders doesn’t just cover the news, he makes sense of it, humanizes it, and welcomes us into the conversation,” said Christy Mirabal, chairperson of TPA. “From his early days at NPR to his groundbreaking work into It, Vibe Check, and now The Sam Sanders Show, he builds spaces where joy, curiosity, and critical conversations thrive. His ability to challenge perspectives, celebrate culture in all its complexity, and make audiences feel truly seen is what sets him apart. The Podcast Academy is proud to honor his lasting influence on the industry with this year’s Impact Award.”
Sanders is an award-winning reporter, radio host and podcaster. He currently co-hosts Vibe Check from Stitcher Podcasts, with Saeed Jones and Zach Stafford, and The Sam Sanders Show, produced in partnership with KCRW, and distributed nationally through PRX.
In 2022, The New York Times named Vibe Check one of the 10 best podcasts of the year and the show was awarded with a Signal Award in 2022 for the best pop culture podcast.
Previously, Sanders launched and hosted the NPR radio show and its podcast It’s Been a Minute, interviewing luminaries ranging from JLo to Maya Rudolph to Beto O’Rourke to Malcolm Gladwell. Sanders was also a founding host of the NPR Politics Podcast while covering Election 2016 for NPR. He founded the pop culture podcast Into It at Vulture and New York Magazine, and it was named a best podcast of the year in 2022 by both Spotify and VOGUE.
Sanders has been named best podcast host by both the Ambies and iHeart Podcast Awards, and his work has been honored by the LA Press Club, the National Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, and the National Association of Black Journalists.
His written work has appeared in New York Magazine, Politico Magazine, The Washington Post, and the Columbia Journalism Review. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of the Incarnate Word and a Master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and has taught radio at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.