WKSU RECOGNIZED WITH TWO REGIONAL EDWARD R. MURROW AWARDS FROM RTNDA

Monday April 26, 2010

WKSU has been honored with two Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards from The Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA). The organization received thousands of regional entries in categories covering radio and television in two divisions. WKSU competes in the Large Market division against public and commercial radio stations in major cities in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

This year WKSU received two Regional Murrows. All Regional Murrow winners are automatically eligible for the national awards competition with prizes being presented in October. WKSU's awards came in the Audio News Documentary and Audio Sports Reporting categories.

The hour-long documentary "Good Jobs in Bad Times" was composed of eight stories by Vivian Goodman, Kevin Niedermier, Amanda Rabinowitz, Tim Rudell, Karen Schaefer, M.L Schultze, and Jeff St. Clair. The WKSU news staff probed Northeast Ohio to uncover the reality of looking for and finding a job in the worst economic climate since the 1980s. The stories had a companion website at www.wksu.org/news/features/jobs/ that included on-demand audio of broadcast stories, photos, graphs, links and additional information on the WKSU website.

Reporter/producer Amanda Rabinowitz's sports feature took a look at the latest enterprise of 22 year old adventurer Katie Spotz. After taking on endurance tests such as marathons, extreme long-distance swimming, and crossing the country by bike, Spotz endeavored to become the youngest person – and only woman – to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Spotz rowed to raise awareness of the need for clean drinking water around the world. Before her Jan. 3 departure, Rabinowitz spoke with Spotz about the challenges, both physical and mental, that have been the center of her training to spend at least two months alone in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. The feature can be found at www.wksu.org/news/story/24414.

RTNDA is the world's largest professional organization devoted exclusively to electronic journalism. It has been honoring outstanding achievement in electronic journalism with Murrow Awards since 1971. Entries in the national awards contest will be judged in early June.

WKSU broadcasts NPR & Classical Music at 89.7 FM, and is a service of Kent State University. WKSU programming is also heard on WKRW 89.3 FM in Wooster, WKRJ 91.5 FM in Dover/New Philadelphia, WKSV 89.1 FM in Thompson, WNRK 90.7 in Norwalk, W298BA 107.5 FM in Boardman, and W239AZ 95.7 FM in Ashland. The station broadcasts three HD Radio channels – adding WKSU-2 Folk Alley and WKSU-3 The Classical Channel to the analog broadcast schedule. The Classical Channel can also be heard in Cleveland at 107.3 HD-3. The WKSU web site is www.wksu.org.
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