StateImpact Pennsylvania’s TMI oral history receives documentary award

Scott Blanchard/WITF

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As director of journalism, I work on things like newsroom strategy, culture, ethics, and training; I work with reporters (mainly climate reporter Rachel McDevitt) on stories; and I'm deeply involved with our community engagement efforts and collaborations with other news organizations.

My roots in journalism go back to growing up outside Washington, D.C., reading Woodward and Bernstein in my hometown paper, and being drawn to the ideals of freedom of the press and holding the powerful to account. I also idolized the Post’s sports columnists, and in fact was a sports reporter/editor before I moved to news.

I followed journalism’s call to the University of Missouri, then to jobs in Virginia and Maryland before landing in Pennsylvania, and I’ve lived near Gettysburg for more than two decades. Living in rural Pa. helps inform my work as a journalist and my belief that listening is one of the most important things we can do.

If I’m not doing journalism stuff, I may be traveling, bird-watching, or both.

Prouser / The Associated Press

FILE PHOTO: Mrs. Joanne Noel, prepares her flower bed for planting in front of her Middletown, Pa., home as daughter Danielle, 4, watches as she sits on the ground, May 18, 1979. Noel evacuated her home with her children during the crisis at Three Mile Island, seen in the background.

May 12, 2020 | 11:02 AM

“I remember TMI,” StateImpact Pennsylvania’s hour-long oral history of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant partial meltdown in 1979, has received a regional Edward R. Murrow Award as best documentary.

The piece was honored in Region 11, made up of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, in the small-market radio division — markets outside the top 50 in the U.S. The awards are presented to small and large radio, television and digital outlets based on 14 geographic areas.

As a regional honoree, “I remember TMI” will be considered for a national Murrow award.

The award was one of six received by WITF, the lead station in StateImpact’s collaboration that includes WHYY, The Allegheny Front and WPSU. Mike Williams, WITF’s multimedia production manager and project manager for StateImpact, produced the documentary with WITF audio specialist Joe Ulrich narrating the story.

Listen as seven residents bring you inside their stories of uncertainty, confusion, fear and the decision they faced: Stay home amid risk of radiation, or flee.

“I remember TMI” also was honored as best documentary in the small-market radio category in the 2020 Keystone Professional Media Awards, a statewide competition. The Keystones also recognized StateImpact for first place in continuing coverage (Reid Frazier’s and Amy Sisk’s coverage of Clairton coke works’ pollution problems).

StateImpact and its partners WESA and The Allegheny Front were honored with the First Amendment Award for going to court to fight an injunction requested by natural gas driller Range Resources, which wanted to stop publication of settlement terms that Frazier discovered in a public court filing.

The Keystones named WITF/StateImpact Pennsylvania as the small-market outstanding news operation.