Utah State University students in the Journalism and Communication department won the program’s first national Edward R. Murrow Award for their half-hour program “Cache Rendezvous: Better Than We Found It.”
The half-hour program examining environmental challenges facing Cache Valley included in-depth interviews about problems with and solutions for the valley’s air, water, and land.
The program was part of a Newscast class taught by Brian Champagne and Chris Garff.
In a press release, it said the class culture became one of challenging each other to do better as the project evolved.
Kainoa Johnson served as the show producer, with students Noah Giles, Verl Johansen, Anna Johnson, Paige Johnson, Marcus Lamb, Zahra Nasir, Morgan Perkins, Clayre Scott, and Katie Varga working on the program.
All are now JCOM graduates, and most of the students are working in the broadcast field.
“This is what happens when students get together and work hard,” said Champagne. “All of the students caught the vision and put in great work.”
He said it was great to see their work pay off.
“There are some big, famous journalism programs out there, but these hard-working students in Logan, Utah, took the prize,” Champagne said.
Garff said the award is a big deal, and winning a national award against much bigger programs isn’t easy.
“It just goes to show that it is not the wand, it's the magician waving it,” said Garff. “We happen to have some great magicians in our JCOM programs.”
The award will be presented at the 2024 Edward R. Murrow Awards Gala on Monday, Oct. 14 at Gotham Hall in New York City.
The Radio and Television Digital News Association has honored outstanding achievements in electronic journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards since 1971.
Murrow was an American broadcast journalist who gained renown during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts.
“The CBS legend’s pursuit of excellence embodies the spirit of the awards that carry his name,” read the press release. “More than 5,000 entries from hundreds of digital and broadcast network journalism organizations competed for this year’s awards.”
Watch the full program on the AggieTVNews YouTube channel.
