KQED also received two Webby nominations in the Podcast category. Truth Be Told’s host Tonya Mosley was nominated for Best Host, while The California Report received a nomination for Diversity and Inclusion for the episode “A Butterfly with My Wings Cut Off’: A Transgender Asylum Seeker’s Quest to Come to California.” A list of all 2021 Webby Award recipients can be found at webbyawards.com.
KQED was recognized with five regional Edward R. Murrow Awards. Each year, the Radio Television Digital News Association recognizes the best journalism produced by radio, television and digital news organizations worldwide. KQED received Northern California awards in these categories:
- Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America, a KQED podcast exploring solutions to some of the biggest housing challenges we’re facing. The Sold Out team includes co-hosts Molly Solomon and Erin Baldassari, and Erika Aguilar, Erika Kelly, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam and Rob Speight.
- Excellence in Innovation for KQED’s approach to the Voicebot Chronicles, a reporting project made exclusively for smart speakers. The Voicebot Chronicles team includes KQED Reporter Chloe Veltman, Producers Lowell Robinson and Bianca Taylor, Senior Editor Erika Kelly and Sound Engineer Rob Speight. The Voicebot Chronicles is an interactive series about navigating a world where humans are increasingly talking with machines — and machines are talking back.
- KQED Reporter Sam Harnett and Co-Creator Chris Hoff for Excellence in Sound for “New Year's Day Music That Hasn't Been Heard in 500 Years,” a story about a group of professors who mapped the acoustic profile of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Istanbul. This episode is a part of The World According to Sound podcast.
- KQED received a Feature Reporting accolade for Lesley McClurg’s story “For HIV Survivors, Pandemic Is Sad Reminder of Early Days of AIDS,” which compares the similarities between the early days of the AIDS crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Older and Overlooked, a year-long reporting project investigating how we can protect one of our state’s most vulnerable populations from wildfires, received an accolade for Investigative Reporting. Reporting by KQED journalists Lisa Pickoff-White, April Dembosky and Molly Peterson resulted in a five-part radio and online series that aired on KQED Public Radio in August 2020 just ahead of last year’s first major Northern California wildfires.
All the regional Edward R. Murrow winners are now eligible for the national awards. A complete list of the 2021 regional winners can be found at rtdna.org.
About KQED
KQED serves the people of Northern California with a public-supported alternative to commercial media. An NPR and PBS affiliate based in San Francisco, KQED is home to one of the most listened-to public radio stations in the nation, one of the highest-rated public television services and an award-winning education program helping students and educators thrive in 21st-century classrooms. A trusted news source and leader and innovator in interactive technology, KQED takes people of all ages on journeys of exploration — exposing them to new people, places and ideas. www.kqed.org
