2024 Podcast (All Newsroom Sizes) Finalists
Nimah Gobir, Carlos Cabrera-Lomeli, Chris Hambrick, Ki Sung, Kara Newhouse, Beth LaBerge & Seth Samuel
MindShift/KQED
Community Schools in California
- How postcards to parents can help schools get kids back to class
- Unhoused students face unique challenges. How can schools help?
- 5 ways the Black Panthers shaped U.S. schools
Comments From the Judges:
“This series did a fabulous job of highlighting the ways that some schools are taking on the challenge of education and providing services to the whole child. I particularly enjoyed the episode about the Black Panthers because it provided historical context for a movement that we may think of as more modern. The episode on postcards to parents encouraging them to bring their kids to school also provided a unique way into the attendance crisis that so many in this country are worried about.”
“Absenteeism in schools is not a new topic, but the response that is highlighted — the use of snail mail – is, and that innovative thinking allows the reporters to illustrate the larger issues such as without being in school, school reps can’t help students with other life activities like bullying and problems back at home. Using the history of the lesser nationally known Black Panther school programs to display the current school infrastructure in Oakland, CA creates a strong informative throughline that also allows for sonically pleasing archival and sound design.”
Jon Marcus & Kirk Carapezza
The Hechinger Report & GBH Boston
College Uncovered
Comments From the Judges:
“These podcast episodes were soooo well done. Interesting, told stories, used really good experts. I especially liked the one about how universities say tuition is one thing but then give everyone a discount. It is a complicated subject but was understandable. I also like the episode about [college] closings and could really feel for those two sisters.”
“They were also full of interesting tidbits, for example, I learned there are 428 colleges and universities where not a single incoming freshman pays the full price! I thought the reporters/producers did a nice job of finding a variety of people to provide perspectives on how some colleges’ funding woes are affecting both those schools and their students. I was particularly impressed with their ability to find students who attended a school that closed and then went to another school that closed. It showed how challenging it can be to trust what colleges are telling you.”
Ilya Marritz, Kristin Nelson, Katya Rogers, Emily Botein, Jazmin Aguilera, Regina De Heer, Jared Paul, Brendan Dalton & Jennifer Munson
The Boston Globe & WNYC
The Harvard Plan
Comments From the Judges:
“This was a deep dive that pulled back the curtain on something that so many were covering in the moment, but that people had left behind in the following weeks and months. Some of the interviews and topics turned out to be prescient and the reporter did a good job of tying an event that happened at an institution where such a small share of people in our country attend college to society more broadly.”
“This was an incredibly well researched and well reported podcast. I felt the immediate stakes and national implications of the issue. Unlike much Ivy League reporting, it got to the wider issue that will affect all universities — how the current administration will affect learning there. The Harvard Plan is not the first series to address affirmative action, but the interviews, sound design, and reflective tone offers a glimpse at a very thoughtful series that will offer a lot of chapters to how our country has lost its control on the public narrative.”
