The Public Radio Regional Organizations presented the annual PRRO Award Nov. 13 to NPR Chief Administrative Officer Joyce Slocum, whose five years with the network included serving as NPR’s interim c.e.o. for nine months in 2011. The PRRO award recognizes behind-the-scenes “heroes” who have helped advance the field of public media throughout their careers. Georgette Bronfmann of Eastern Region Public Media presented the award, lauding Slocum for steering NPR during challenging times and describing the respect she earned among colleagues for her leadership. As chief administrative officer of NPR, Slocum serves as secretary to the NPR Board of Directors and is an adviser to the NPR Foundation Board of Trustees.
Programs produced by Chicago’s WBEZ, New York’s WNYC and Miami’s WLRN won awards from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, handed out Oct. 20 at the organization’s Filmless Festival in Chicago.
Online-news nonprofits and public broadcasters took home multiple awards from the annual Online News Association conference, held Oct. 17–19 in Atlanta.
American Masters and Downton Abbey led the opening round of the annual Primetime Emmys Sept. 15 by claiming three Creative Arts Emmys for PBS. American Masters, a production of New York’s WNET, topped the category for outstanding documentary or nonfiction series. Credit for the Emmy went to Susan Lacy, executive producer; Julie Sacks, supervising producer; Prudence Glass, series producer; and Jessica Levin, producer. The Emmy for direction in nonfiction programming was awarded to Robert Trachtenberg for his direction of the American Masters biography “Mel Brooks: Make a Noise.”
Presented by NPR’s Scott Simon in Cleveland June 22, Public Radio News Directors Inc. honored the best local public radio news in 16 categories based on the size of stations’ newsroom staff. In addition, PRNDI recognized stations for standout news reporting edited by a national producer; these awards were presented in several categories without consideration of newsroom size. Top winners among this year’s contenders were Colorado Public Radio, Chicago’s WBEZ, WUOT of Knoxville, Tenn., and WBGO in Newark, N.J., which each received four first-place awards in their divisions. Miami’s WLRN and WBFO in Buffalo, N.Y., both topped three categories. CPR, WBEZ, and WLRN competed amongst stations with the largest newsrooms: Division A, for newsrooms staffed by five or more full-time journalists.
WLRN in Miami won large-market radio Murrows for feature reporting and use of sound. Chicago’s WBEZ also won for news documentary and hard-news reporting. The award for investigative reporting went to KQED and the Center for Investigative Reporting, both based in San Francisco, for “Broken Shield: Exposing Abuses at California Developmental Centers.”
Programs on public television received 13 creative arts honors and one broadcast statuette in Daytime Emmy Award ceremonies Friday and Sunday in Los Angeles.
Wes Moore, the host of Beyond Belief on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network and author of the bestseller The Other Wes Moore, won CPB’s Thought Leader Award, which honors those who assist public media in the areas of education, journalism and the arts. A U.S. Army combat veteran who serves on the board of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and as founder of STAND!, an organization that supports youth caught up in the criminal justice system, Moore also hosts the forthcoming PBS primetime series Coming Back, which chronicles the returns of nine veterans from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Wes Moore is an inspiring advocate for America’s youth and a champion for public media’s American Graduate initiative,” said Patricia Harrison, CPB president. The award was presented during the PBS Annual Meeting in Miami Beach, Fla.
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In a citation honoring Maine Public TV’s Kelly Luoma as the Charles Impaglia Programmer of the Year, PTPA lauded her “for tirelessly advocating for the audience and the programming community within public television, even when it is not politically correct . . . [and for] the singular achievement of increasing a station’s viewership every year since the digital transition, while the system has shown whole week and primetime declines.”
In another award presented during last month’s PTPA meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., Kentucky Educational Television’s Craig Cornwell was lauded for achievements in local scheduling. TRAC Media Services, which manages PTPA, cited Cornwell “for ensuring that local productions always get prime placement, for understanding a market where Best of the Joy of Painting often equals the Antiques Roadshow repeat on Saturday .
PBS has honored its former chair Alberto Ibargüen for his contributions to civic engagement. Ibargüen, c.e.o. of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and former PBS Board chair, received the PBS “Be More” Award celebrating individuals in pubTV who embody the spirit of helping Americans discover more, experience more and “be more.”
The former publisher of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald leads Knight Foundation efforts to promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. “PBS applauds his commitment to informed and engaged communities, integrity and independence in journalism, and helping people reach their highest potential by ensuring that everyone has access to information that helps them understand more and be more,” said PBS President Paula Kerger. The awards were presented during the PBS 2013 Annual Meeting in Miami May 15–16. Send awards notices to [email protected].
Journalist and educator John Dinges will receive this year’s Leo C. Lee Award for significant contributions to public radio news. As head of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s radio curriculum, Dinges revamped the program to emphasize public radio journalism and helped launch the careers of award-winning pubradio journalists “from Wyoming to Washington, D.C.,” according to PRNDI’s award announcement. Earlier in his career, Dinges was a freelance correspondent in Latin America and contributed to Time, the Washington Post, ABC Radio, the Miami Herald and other news organizations. He became an assistant editor on the foreign desk at the Washington Post and later joined NPR to help bolster its foreign coverage. He was promoted to deputy foreign editor and later ascended to managing editor for NPR News.
Public radio reporters took all nine awards for radio reporting in this year’s Sigma Delta Chi Awards, which recognize outstanding reporting on radio, TV and the Web by national and local news organizations. NPR’s Ina Jaffe, Quinn O’Toole and Steven Drummond won for breaking news reporting (network syndication) for “Los Angeles VA Has Made Millions on Rental Deals.” For investigative reporting, John Ryan and Jim Gates of KUOW in Seattle were cited among stations in markets 1–100 for “Shell’s Arctic Oil-Spill Gear ‘Crushed Like a Beer Can,’” while Sandy Hausman of WVTF and Radio IQ in Roanoke, Va., won in the 101+ market category for “Naming the Fralin,” about naming the University of Virginia Art Museum. In the feature categories, Linda Lutton, Cate Cahan and Sally Eisele of Chicago’s WBEZ won for “The weight of the city’s violence, on one school principal,” and Lance Orozco of KCLU in Thousand Oaks, Calif., for “My Cancer.”
NPR’s State of the Re:Union, co-distributed by Public Radio Exchange, won the syndicated documentary award for “As Black as We Wish to Be,” which explored an Appalachian foothills town in Ohio where residents who look white identify as African-American; it was reported and produced by Lu Olkowski, Laura Spero, Taki Telonidis and Al Letson. Alabama Public Radio’s “Winds of Change,” coverage by Pat Duggins, Ryan Vasquez, Maggie Martin and Stan Ingold of a Tuscaloosa tornado, won for smaller-market documentary. The public service in radio journalism winners were “If it’s legal: Five ways legal pot could affect your life,” by the staff of Seattle’s KPLU (markets 1–100); Charles Lane and Naomi Starobin of WSHU in Fairfield, Conn., for “State struggled at fire prevention ahead of Manorville blaze.”
In the television categories, San Francisco’s KQED and the Center for Investigative Reporting won for large-market (1–50) documentary for “Heat and Harvest,” a report on the effect of climate change on California agriculture by Mark Schapiro, Serene Fang, Gabriela Quiros and Craig Miller.
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences presents two honors in a variety of categories — the Webby Award and the Webby People’s Voice Award. IADAS members select nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of Webby Awards, while members of “the online community” vote for winners of People’s Voice awards. PBS Digital Properties shined in both contests: its productions took four Webbys and three Webby People’s Voice Awards. “Mister Rogers Remixed: Garden of Your Mind,” the first in a series of remixes of iconic PBS personalities created by PBS Digital Studios, won the Webby for video remixes/mashups. PBS Kids received both a Webby and Webby People’s Voice Award for best youth website.
NPR stations won 82 large-market regional Murrow Awards, while small-market pubcasters captured 91. Among all stations, WLRN in Miami topped public radio’s regional winners by taking 11 awards in 13 Murrow categories: overall excellence, breaking news, continuing coverage, feature reporting, investigative reporting, news documentary, new series, hard-news reporting, use of sound, writing and website. “We feel thrilled and humbled by the honor,” said Dan Grech, news director. “I couldn’t be prouder of the team.”
Four additional large-market pubcasters each won six Murrows: KQED in San Francisco, WBEZ in Chicago, KUT in Austin and WBUR in Boston. And four large-market stations each won four Murrows: KUOW in Seattle; St.
The nonprofit InsideClimate News won this year’s National Reporting Pulitzer Prize for its investigative series The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of. Reporters Elizabeth McGowan, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer took on a seven-month investigation about a 2010 oil spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. The winning package consisted of a three-part narrative and follow-up articles delving deeper into the circumstances of the oil spill. “It was an important story, and we told it well through the eyes of the people who experienced it and who are investigating it,” said David Sassoon, founder and publisher of ICN. Sassoon started ICN six years ago as a blog with just two people.
InsideClimate News, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit environmental journalism outlet, won a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. The award was announced by the Pulitzer Committee April 15.
Dylan Wrynn, a 1992 Antioch grad who chose Pete Tridish (from “petri dish”) as his nom de guerre, founded Prometheus Radio in 1998 to use radio as a force for social change in areas such as housing, environmentalism, health care, antiwar activism and criminal-justice reform. A trained radio engineer who has helped build stations across the U.S., Guatemala, Colombia, Nepal, Tanzania and Jordan, Tridish considers himself — according to Antioch’s website — a “freelance troublemaker.”
In 2011, largely due to organizing efforts spearheaded by Tridish and Prometheus, the FCC granted licenses for up to 3,000 new low-power FM stations. “Needless to say, I am flattered, humbled, thrilled and embarrassed by the honor, and totally unworthy of the company I have been thrust into,” wrote Tridish in an announcement. Named after Antioch’s first president, the Horace Mann Award recognizes contributions by alumni who have followed Mann’s advice to the class of 1859 and “won some victory for humanity.” It will be presented June 15 in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This article was first published in Current, April 1, 2013
