WLRN has won two first place awards and has been named the overall winner of the radio division of the prestigious 2024 Green Eyeshade Awards, which recognizes journalistic excellence media outlets in 11 southeastern states.
The competition looks at journalists based in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
WLRN was awarded first place in the Public Service in Radio Journalism category for its series Waiting for America, while the investigative series Unguarded won the Investigating Reporting / Audio award — as well as the overall Radio Division honor.
Unguarded was a 2023 series of stories delving into the Guardianship Program of Dade County’s repeated sales of incapacitated people’s homes to a politically connected company, which then resold the properties for profit. The series has won national and regional awards.
Earlier this year, it won the top award for audio investigations from Investigative Reporters and Editors, a national professional membership organization. Reporters Daniel Rivero and Joshua Ceballos, as well as editors Jessica Bakeman, Sergio Bustos and Matheus Sanchez, were named in the honor. In May, Unguarded captured the top prize in the annual 2024 Esserman-Knight Journalism Awards, which “celebrates and encourages outstanding investigative and public service reporting in South Florida.”
READ MORE: WLRN's 'Unguarded' wins prestigious national award for investigative journalism
In its Waiting for America series, WLRN journalists spent months doing interviews with immigrants and others to learn the impact of the Biden administration’s 2022 humanitarian parole program for Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. WLRN reported that the program was hampered by bureaucratic problems almost from the beginning and failed to achieve its goal of reducing a flood of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Since 1950, The Green Eyeshades Award have recognized the very best journalism in the southeastern United States — which now includes print, television, radio, and digital.
The winners were announced late Friday by the organization. Read the complete list of award winners and honorees here.
WLRN was awarded in the following categories:
Public Service in Radio Journalism
First Place: WLRN News – Staff, Waiting for America
Investigative Reporting / Radio
First Place: WLRN News – Daniel Rivero, Joshua Ceballos, Jessica Bakeman & Sergio Bustos, Unguarded
Overall Radio Division
First Place: WLRN News – Daniel Rivero, Joshua Ceballos, Jessica Bakeman & Sergio Bustos, Unguarded
Digital Media Presentation
Second Place: WLRN News – Jenny Staletovich, Laura Kurtzberg & Patrick Farrell, Bright Lit Place
Documentaries / Radio
Third Place: WLRN News – Verónica Zaragovia & Jessica Bakeman, A battle over the soul of Miami Beach: Will developers destroy or save Art Deco?
