WBHM, Gulf States Newsroom win Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards

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WBHM won six of the 11 awards for small market radio, while the Gulf States Newsroom won five of 10 awards and a sixth award as a collaborating partner for large market radio. The awards were announced Thursday, May 18. See the full list of award winners. Regional Murrow Award winners will now advance to compete in the national Murrow Awards competition. National winners will be announced this summer.

WBHM Executive Director and General Manager Will Dahlberg says he is incredibly happy and proud for WBHM and the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration among WBHM, Mississippi Public Radio, and WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana.

“These awards exemplify the strength and diversity of reporting that our team works so tirelessly to cover in our region,” Dahlberg said. “The awards are a wonderful reminder of the power of public media and our mission to enlighten and enrich our audience and make strong connections to our communities through journalism that is fair, credible, accurate and honest.”

WBHM’s awards:

• Continuing Coverage: LGBTQ Laws
• Feature Reporting: Alabama Gray Bat Summer Cave
• Hard News: Teens Say Birmingham’s Gun Violence Takes a Heavy Toll
• Newscast: September 28, 2022, Newscast
• Podcast: “Deliberate Indifference”
• Sports Reporting: What is Korfball? A Look into the World Games Sport and Birmingham

Awards for the Gulf States Newsroom:

• Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: After Years in a Museum Exhibit, Alabama Is Giving Native Americans Their Cultural Items Back
• Excellence in Writing: From Pig Ears to Vegan Food, Jackson’s Oldest Black Business District Finds New Life
• Feature Reporting: How 3 Gulf South Country Stores Are Adapting to High Inflation
• Sports Reporting: Deion Sanders Has Ushered in a New Era of HBCU Football. Will the SWAC Capitalize on It?
• Hard News: Privacy Researcher Worries About a ‘Scenario Where Everyone is a Sheriff’ Post-Roe, Recorded Future News (in partnership with Gulf States Newsroom)
• Investigative Reporting: The Imbalanced Scales of Immigration Justice

“Having built this collaboration from the ground up starting in the fall of 2020, it brings me such pride to see our team recognized in this way,” said the Gulf States Newsroom Managing Editor Priska Neely. “In addition to the work by the Gulf States Newsroom regional reporters that was recognized, we also brought in awards for stories the GSN editors worked on with local reporters at WBHM and elevated to a broader audience. That really highlights the mission of the collaboration to build and strengthen the reporting power in the region.”

This work — and these awards — would not be possible without the leadership and guidance of Neely and WBHM Managing Editor Andrew Yeager, “who are two of the finest editors and leaders in public radio newsrooms around the country,” Dahlberg said.

“We are so lucky to have both of them based here in Birmingham. On behalf of WBHM, we are grateful for the continued support of the community, as well as partners at NPR and CPB, who have helped to make our work possible.” 

WBHM 90.3 FM is “NPR News for the Heart of Alabama” and a listener-supported service of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. More than a radio station, WBHM is an essential public resource through journalism that is fair, credible, accurate and honest. The WBHM newsroom makes its decisions independently from WBHM’s business and fundraising operations. Free from commercial and political influence, WBHM seeks to make Birmingham and Alabama a better place to live by educating, engaging and entertaining the people of the Birmingham Metro area and the state. WBHM is dedicated to the idea that an informed citizenry is vital to democracy and a thriving economy, and it celebrates diversity, innovation and lifelong learning. For more news, follow the station on Facebook and @WBHM903 on Instagram.

The Gulf States Newsroom is a joint regional news collaboration between NPR and member stations in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana: New Orleans’ WWNO, Baton Rouge’s WRKF and Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson. Through the Gulf States Newsroom, the stations and NPR share resources, plan together and deliver more reporting in areas with widening gaps in local news coverage. Made possible with lead support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Heather and Paul Haaga Jr., the collaboration aims to better serve the existing public media audience while also making a multi-platform push to reach new, diverse groups throughout the Gulf region. The Gulf States Newsroom’s Neely was named 2022 Editor of the Year by the Public Media Journalists Association.