“What a way to cap a Friday!” managing editor Cathy Duchamp wrote to KUOW’s staff.
She was referring to regional and national awards our newsroom won this week.
On Thursday, reporter John Ryan and editor Carol Smith won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association for an investigation into landslide safety in Washington state.
RadioActive Youth Media also won a regional Murrow for a story about LGBT clubs at private schools. It was the third year in a row that RadioActive has won the regional Murrow in the "Reporting: Hard News" category for large-market radio.
They find out later if their stories won national Murrow awards.
[asset-images[{"caption": "Jim Simon looks over the Ledgewood Beach bluff from the unmowed lawn of a condemned home on Whidbey Island. KUOW's John Ryan documented weaknesses in counties' rules for buffers around landslide-prone areas. ", "fid": "82373", "style": "offset_left", "uri": "public://201409/DSCN2899.JPG", "attribution": "Credit KUOW Photo/John Ryan"}]] Read the story: Landslide Safety All Over The Map in Washington State
Read the story: Seattle Catholic Students Form Underground Clubs For LGBT Youth
On Friday, six reporters and editors from our newsroom won Gracie Awards – those are national awards specifically for female journalists, given by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation.
Liz Jones, our immigration beat reporter, won for outstanding reporter/correspondent for non-commercial radio. (Carol Smith was her editor.)
Listen to the series: Two Indias, Near And Far
Listen to her story: I Used To Love You America, But Things Just Didn’t Work Out
Producer Hannah Burn and host Marcie Sillman won for outstanding interview program or feature, for a segment on sexism in gaming on The Record.
Listen to the interview: ‘Gamergate’ Is Just A Microcosm Of A Sexist Society
[asset-images[{"caption": "Carol Glenn, who collected leftover HIV/AIDS drugs to send overseas, was the subject of a story by Jessica Partnow, of the Seattle Globalist.", "fid": "100852", "style": "placed_left", "uri": "public://201411/IMG_3889.JPG", "attribution": "Credit KUOW Photo/Isolde Raftery"}]] And Jessica Partnow, of the Seattle Globalist, won for outstanding documentary for a two-part series about a Seattle nurse who smuggled drugs to Africa. Carol Smith edited the series. (Isolde Raftery, the photographer and Web producer for this piece, was also noted in the award.)
Jessica’s reporting was made possible by a Project Venture Fund.
Listen to this project: The Seattle Nurse Who Risked Everything To Smuggle AIDS Drugs
The Gracie wins are a point of pride for KUOW, because they highlight how many women are on our staff at a time when American newsrooms still are predominantly male. (That there is a separate awards ceremony for women speaks to that problem.)
“I’m so proud of our reporters and producers,” Duchamp said. “These awards reflect their talent to report the news while telling personal stories that go straight to your heart.”