WLRN wins 14 Florida News Awards for work produced in 2021

WLRN Public Media | By WLRN News

Published May 9, 2022 at 2:55 PM EDT

An image of the exhibit Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York. — The exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York celebrates the work of previously little-known fabric designer Suzie Zuzek. Nancy Klingener of WLRN was a finalist in the Feature Reporting, Cultural & Historical category for the story, ”Her prints made Lilly Pulitzer famous,” at this year's Florida News Awards.

WLRN earned 14 awards in the Florida News Awards competition for journalism produced in 2021, including Overall Station of the Year – for the third time in the past four years. The Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists presented the awards at a ceremony in Orlando on Saturday.

Notable this year: Leslie Ovalle, producer of Sundial, won individual honors for best producer, and the station was a finalist in the large market TV education category for a story included in the statewide “Class of COVID-19” project.

Here’s the complete rundown of WLRN’s honors, all were in the Radio, Statewide category except “Meet one woman on a mission to find hundreds of kids, lost to their schools”:

WINNERS

Overall Station of the Year: WLRN News

Breaking News

“Surfside condo collapses”

WLRN News Team

Digital Programming

“Class of COVID-19: An education crisis for Florida’s vulnerable students”

Patricia Moynihan, WFSU; Jessica Bakeman, WLRN; the WLRN News Team; and Florida Public Media

Education Reporting, Single Story

“For special education students, a potential side effect of COVID-19 school closures: struggling to communicate”

Robbie Gaffney, WFSU; Jessica Bakeman, WLRN

Florida Public Media