In the world of broadcast news, when it comes to awards, a national award is the cream of the crop.
The Murrows, administered by the Radio Television Digital News Association, are highly competitive. Thousands enter. If the judges in a particular category don鈥檛 feel there are any entries worthy to carry the name of the legendary CBS newsman, they will not name a winner in that category.
This year, WKSU was deemed worthy. We won a national Edward R. Murrow award for a story about medical care in rural Ohio.
Jacqueline Marino, an accomplished magazine writer and terrific journalism professor at Kent State University, approached me a year-and-a-half ago about partnering on a reporting project during her upcoming sabbatical.
She wanted to tell the story of a NEOMED program that鈥檚 working to address the health care needs of rural Ohio by encouraging med students to take their talents to these underserved parts of the state鈥� and stay there. But Jacquie didn鈥檛 want to just write about the program; she wanted to explore how she could tell the story on-air, the first time she鈥檇 ever done a radio story.
She spent the summer of 2021 reporting and stayed in touch. We worked with her, giving her tips on how and what to record. As the reporting started to wrap up, she started writing, and I worked with her on crafting and editing her script. Our producer, Jon Nungesser, worked with Jacquie to coach her on her vocal delivery, record her and then produced the piece.
The story that resulted was a 15-minute documentary, 鈥�.鈥� It was a hefty endeavor. By comparison, most feature stories you hear on WKSU are about four minutes long.
鈥淭he rural doctor is in鈥� won the national Murrow for best documentary. But there鈥檚 one other group with whom we share this award.
You.
At 海角破解版, we challenge ourselves to be the best audio storytellers we can be and to create, to innovate and, most importantly, to connect. But everything we do is only possible because of you.
We just wrapped up our fall fundraising drive. We spend a lot of time during our drives trying to convey to you what your financial support makes possible. This documentary, and Jacquie鈥檚 follow-up project, the just-concluded series 鈥�,鈥� are good examples of what you make possible.
So when they open the envelope for any award we get for our work and announce, 鈥淎nd the winner is 鈥︹��
The winner is you.
Thank you.
"The Cut" is featured in 海角破解版's weekly newsletter, The Frequency Week in Review. To get The Frequency Week in Review, The Daily Frequency or any of our newsletters, sign up on Ideastream's newsletter subscription page.
