Wyoming Public Media has won several awards for reporting during 2022. Wyoming Public Media won two regional Edward R. Murrow awards in the “Podcast” and “Breaking News” categories as well as a Public Media Journalist Association (PMJA) award for best “News Documentary.”
The Murrow award is granted by the Radio Television Digital News Association, honoring outstanding achievements in electronic journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards since 1971. Award recipients demonstrate the spirit of excellence that Murrow set as a standard for the profession of broadcast and digital journalism. They are considered among the most prestigious awards in broadcast and digital news.
The podcast, “The Great Individualist: Episode 8, Slow Waters Run Deep,” won a first-place regional Murrow award in the “Podcast” category, by Wyoming Public media reporter and producer Melodie Edwards.
The news feature, “After Defeat, Cheney Says ‘the Real Work Begins’,“ a story produced by Caitlin Tan, won a first place regional Murrow award in the “Breaking News Coverage” category.
Since 2005 Wyoming Public Media has won a combination of 30 regional and national Murrow awards. Broadcast and digital news outlets in Wyoming compete against commercial and non-commercial stations in Region 3, which includes Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. WPM competes in the small market category.
Wyoming Public Media also won a Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA) Award for the “Modern West Podcast episode Cows=Civilization” which got 1st place in the “Long Documentary” category, and focused on the value of the buffalo. PMJA represents public media journalists across the US, supporting, empowering, and advocating. The winning podcast episode was produced by Melodie Edwards.
According to one source for The Modern West podcast, Eastern Shoshone member and National Wildlife Federation Buffalo Coordinator Jason Baldes, “I think buffalo give us a lot of hope for our future. The way that cows represent the oppression, buffalo represent the opposite.”
The Modern West Podcast Season: The Great Individualist was granted an award from the Society of Professional Journalists, which awarded the series 3rd place in the “Podcast” category. The Modern West podcast series receiving acclaim, The Great Individualist, proclaims in its introduction: “The cowboy roaming horseback across the American West is nearly inextricable from what it means to be American. But now a new generation of ranchers is working to reinvent this iconic way of life to fit a modern world.” Listen to The Modern West – The Great Individualist podcast series at https://www.themodernwest.org/thegreatindiviidualist.