KZMU receives prestigious Regional Edward R. Murrow award!

KZMU is honored to receive a prestigious award for our five-part mini-series, Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility, featuring non-narrated audio portraits of LGBTQ+ locals. We created this project in the wake of a double homicide of a local queer couple in our area. Our aim was to deepen understanding and empathy within our community and reinforce a sense of belonging.

The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Edward R. Murrow Awards are among the most prestigious in broadcast and digital news, honoring outstanding achievements in electronic journalism since 1971. KZMU’s Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility mini-series won the regional award in the category ‘Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.’ This category honors outstanding advocacy journalism and storytelling that brings awareness and dialogue to an issue.

The violent deaths of two members of our local queer community caused many in our community to feel pain and experience trauma. KZMU responded to the need to widen the lens on the queer experience in Moab by elevating and sharing voices and stories from LGBTQ+ community members on our airwaves. We are honored to have done so, and honored by this recognition. 

We are so proud of and humbled by the storytellers in this mini-series who shared their experiences of being queer in rural Utah. We thank Laura DeFrain, Nicole Croke, Sam Van Wetter, Sallie Hodges, Sylvia Bentley and Matthew A. Jonassaint. Thank you for sharing moments of radical queer joy to help our community heal. As storyteller Sam put it, “the desert is gay as hell.” 

This project was done on a shoestring budget, with help from grants from WabiSabi and the Grand County Economic Development Department. Credit is due to editor/producer Serah Mead, interviewer Ginger Allen, producer Molly Marcello, and listener C. White for getting this project off the ground and onto the airwaves. 

 

Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility was made of, by, and for our community and we are humbled and inspired at its reception and impact. To listen to our storytellers, find Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility on our website: KZMU.ORG/LIFT-UP. We recognize that there is always work to be done to increase empathy and understanding of marginalized communities. To take direct action in this regard, we are continuing the Lift Up series with the intention of elevating voices and stories of more underrepresented groups  in our community and the intersections therein. If you’d like to be involved with the project, as a subject, producer, or otherwise, please reach out to Serah Mead, serah@kzmu.org.

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More on the Award, the Category, and the KZMU Entry 

The Award: 

The RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Awards are among the most prestigious in broadcast and digital news.The Murrow Awards are the embodiment of the values, principles and standards set forth by Edward R. Murrow, a journalism pioneer who set the standards for the highest quality of broadcast journalism.

The Radio Television Digital News Association has been 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.

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Regional Murrow Awards are presented to small and large radio, television and digital outlets based on 14 geographic regions. Regional winners are automatically considered for a National award. 

–Radio, Television, Digital News Association

 The Category: Excellence In Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion

This category honors outstanding advocacy journalism tackling the topic of diversity, racial injustice and/or inequality. The storytelling must bring an awareness to an issue(s) and potentially bring about a solution or dialogue.

 KZMU’s entry: Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility

Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility is a mini-series of non-narrated audio portraits created in the wake of, and to supplement our news coverage of, a double homicide of a queer couple in our area. Amidst a flurry of reporting steeped in tragedy, violence, homophobia, and trauma, KZMU responded to the need to widen the lens on the queer experience in our community. This is, we feel, what made this series different from other media coverage, regional, and statewide coverage of the event. 

 This project is important for the underrepresented members of our community and demographic majorities alike for the same reason: “When people hear stories that feel representative, it creates a vehicle for nuanced conversations, which are what truly drive change. Stories invite perspective taking: the concept of standing in someone else’s shoes and imagining what it’s like to be them. It’s a drastically underutilized inclusion tool.” – Seleca Rezvani and Stacey A. Gordon from the article entitled How sharing Our Stories Builds Inclusion. Our intention with elevating and sharing voices and stories from LGBTQ+ community members over our airwaves is to deepen understanding and empathy within our community and reinforce a sense of belonging.

We intentionally aired these pieces as long-form, non-narrated stories in an effort to preserve the interviewees’ lived experiences. Acting as cultural snapshots of being queer in rural Utah, these stories speak to the complexities of the current moment in the wake of a local tragedy, and will be added to an enduring tapestry of life in Moab. Our submission features four interviewees in three separate interviews. We’ve included both the intro we used to introduce the mini-series, as well as the intro we used to culminate the project. Each interview is separated by a short musical interlude, music that was featured in the broadcasted pieces. 

 For listener C. White of Moab, Utah, listening to the Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility series was “like sitting in the living room with a person and really getting a sense of their heart.” These pieces provided a unique opportunity for community members to share an intimate experience with someone they might otherwise have no connection to, or someone whose views and lived reality they distrust or even disagree with completely. Through the medium of public broadcasting there is an inherent safe place for sharing and receiving these stories, which increases their impact and opportunities for empathy, engaging conversations, and meaningful change. Thank you for your consideration and we hope you enjoy listening to our series.