Congrats To Our Award-Winning Hearken Partners!
We wanted to give a huge congratulations to all of our partners who were recognized in a slew of awards in the last few months!
This post has been updated to reflect more awards won by our partner newsrooms, and will continue to be updated as we hear from more award winners.
PRNDI
Public Radio News Directors, Inc. honors the best work in public media and compete according to newsroom size, so you’ll see some repeat categories. These awards were handed out on early June.
KUT won 6 PRNDIs, the most of our partner newsrooms(!!) including the 1st place prize in Arts Feature for this Hearken-powered ATXplained story.
Michigan Public Radio won four 1st place awards, including Soft Feature for “I Wanna Be A Batman!”. The feature was powered by audience questions on the identity of “batman.”
WBEZ won two awards, including the 1st place award in the Short Documentary category for their Hearken-powered Curious City investigation “The Nazi’s Neighborhood.”
St. Louis Public Radio took home a 2nd place plaque for their continuing coverage on an officer-involved shooting, and they also took questions to inform their ongoing reporting.
WUFT took home a 1st place award in writing for “When the Lights Go Out, and Stay Out,” a powerful look at families left behind after Hurricane Irma as part of their ongoing Untold Florida series.
VPR won 3 awards, including a 2nd place nod for their Hearken-powered call-in program on Vermont identity.
Other acknowledgements:
Colorado Public Radio won two 1st place awards, including a Best Series nod for Breaking Bread, in which they brought people from different walks of life together to talk about their differences.
WBUR won four awards, including first place in the Call-In Program category for their Radio Boston episode on a free speech controversy at Middlebury College.
KJZZ took home 3 awards, including 1st place for writing on this feature piece on a beginner’s taxidermy class.
KUOW won three first place awards, including their breaking news coverage of the Amtrak train derailment.
KCRW took home 2nd place for their podcast “There Goes The Neighborhood: LA.”
New Hampshire Public Radio won 4 PRNDIs, including a 1st place award for sports!
WUWM won three 2nd place awards. Check out their winning news feature on Milwaukee’s Sherman Park.
WFAE won two 2nd place plaques, including best news/public affairs program for this Charlotte Talks episode on the human toll of the opioid epidemic.
KPCC snagged a 2nd place PRNDI for their short documentary on homelessness in California.
WFDD won five PRNDI awards, including a 1st place for their reporting on a construction project’s impact on the nearby black community.
WGCU nabbed four awards, including 1st place for their breaking news coverage of Hurricane Irma.
Boise State Public Radio won 2nd place for their breaking news report on the death of former Idaho governor Cecil Andrus.
Marfa Public Radio snapped up three PRNDIs, including 1st place for their short documentary “Dark Skies, Dark Energies”
KRCC took home the 1st place News Feature award for Guns To Garden Tools: Beating Swords Into Plowshares
Regional Murrows
The annual Edward R. Murrow awards are BIG. Newsrooms compete in these awards according to regions, so there are a few repeat awards here.
KPCC won an Excellence in Innovation award for their coverage of the Southern California wildfires, which included a Hearken-powered callout for questions on the ongoing disaster, which informed their later reporting.
KUT won 5 awards, including Best Use of Sound for this ATXplained story on blue panels along a city overpass.
New Hampshire Public Radio took home 4 awards, including Excellence In Innovation for their Civics 101 podcast.
Vermont Public Radio took home an award for Best News Documentary for Why Is Vermont So Overwhelmingly White? based off a Hearken-powered question for Brave Little State.
WAMU won 6 awards, including Excellence in Social Media for their Hearken-powered work on The Trump Effect.
WBEZ won an Excellence in Innovation Murrow for their Curious City short documentary The Nazi’s Neighborhood.
WFDD snapped up 3 awards, including Overall Excellence and Excellence in Innovation for their Hearken-powered community conversation on mental health.
WUWM scored an Excellence in Innovation award for their Hearken-powered Bubbler Talk series.
KCPT won for Best Website, home of curiousKC!
Other acknowledgements:
Texas Tribune snagged 7 awards, the most of any digital news outlet!
WBUR took home a whopping 12 Regional Murrow awards (!!), including Excellence in Innovation for Beyond Sides of History: A Series.
WITF came away with 11 Regional Murrows, including the Excellence in Innovation award for The Vietnam War: WITF Stories.
Boise State Public Radio won 5 awards, including Investigative Reporting and Overall Excellence.
The Center for Public Integrity took home 4 awards, including Excellence in Social Media for their work on #CitizenSleuth.
The Virginian-Pilot picked up an Investigative Reporting award for The Shot.
KCRW won the Hard News award in their region for their reporting on homeless Uber drivers living out of their cars.
WFPL took home 3 awards, including Overall Excellence and Investigative Reporting.
WUFT won 5 Regional Murrows, including Overall Excellence and Best News Documentary for Florida After Irma.
National Murrow Awards
Winners in the regional Murrow awards move on to compete for National Murrows, and a number of partners walked away with wins!
New Hampshire Public Radio walked away with an award for Overall Excellence.
Vermont Public Radio snagged two awards, including the News Documentary category for Why Is Vermont So Overwhelmingly White? based off a Hearken-powered question.
WFDD won the Excellence in Innovation in the large market radio division for their Hearken-powered Community Conversation on Mental Health
WUFT and KUT earned Murrows for best website in the small and large market radio categories, respectively.
Other acknowledgements:
Minnesota Public Radio earned a nod for their continuing coverage of The Fatal Police Shooting of Justine Ruszcyzk
KQED topped the Investigative Reporting category for large market radio stations with their reporting on predatory bail schemes in Santa Clara jails.
The Center for Public Integrity earned 3 awards, including Excellence in Social Media for their #CitizenSleuth project.
WITF won two awards, including the Excellence in Innovation award for The Vietnam War: WITF Stories.
KUOW earned a Murrow for their breaking news coverage of the Amtrak Derailment.
The Texas Tribune won 3 National Murrows, including News Documentary for Beyond the Wall.
The Pulitzer Prize
We’d be derelict in duty if we didn’t mention THE TOP prize in journalism. Several of our partners were finalists for this prestigious award!
AL.com’s John Archibald won the Pulitzer for Commentary!
The Virginian-Pilot was a finalist in Investigative Reporting for Tim Eberly’s work uncovering the abuses of the state’s three-strikes law.
The Dallas Morning News was a finalist in Editorial Writing for Sharon Grigsby’s editorials on the sexual abuse scandal at Baylor University
Other Honors
WUWM won an Associated Press Media Editors award for their community engagement efforts on the Hearken-powered Bubbler Talk series!
Check out this kind note from APME:
“For transforming the culture of its newsroom, involving every reporter and producer in actively listening to the community, and experimenting with ways to encourage audience participation. The convincing metrics that resulted show the audience is on board, and people are talking.”
KCRW took 3rd place in the Lifestyle Feature category at the LA Press Club Awards for their Curious Coast story “Does Carpinteria really have the ‘world’s safest beach?”
We’re so honored to be supporting the work these newsrooms do every day, partnering with their communities to create award-winning work! Congratulations all!
Ready to better engage the public? Download our free engagement checklist guide.
