In 2017, Drost was a co-recipient of The Robert Spiers Benjamin Award for "best reporting in any medium on Latin America" from the Overseas Press Club of America, for Fight for Peace, a PBS NewsHour piece reporting on FARC guerrillas in Colombia.[2]
In 2021, Drost won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for the story "When can we really rest?", published in the California Sunday Magazine (which closed in October 2020).[1][3] It is extremely rare for a freelance journalist to win a Pulitzer. For the story, Drost spent five days in the Darién Gap, an undeveloped area of rainforest and marshland on the border between Colombia and Panama, interviewing and following migrants who were crossing the region.[4] It is considered one of the longest and most dangerous human migration routes in the world.[5]
Drost is a co-recipient with the videographer Bruno Federico of a 2021 Peabody Award, for the report "Desperate Journey" on PBS NewsHour.[6] At the 87th National Headliner Awards she won The Best in Show Television award for "Desperate Journey" and first place for magazine feature writing by an individual on a variety of subjects for "When can we really rest?".[7] Drost also received an Honorable Mention from the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) at the 2021 Annual Writing Awards for "When can we really rest?".[8]
America Ferrera Presents Desperate Journey with a Peabody Award, Peabody awards, June 18, 2021
