WUSF journalists are being honored in four categories of the SPJ Green Eyeshade Awards, a competition honoring the best work of 2023 from journalists in 11 Southeastern states.
Since 1950, The Green Eyeshades have recognized the very best print, television, radio, and digital journalism in the southeastern United States. Entries come from newsrooms in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
WUSF Reporter Stephanie Colombini won top honors in the Radio Feature category, for her in-depth profile of a teenager who left Florida in fear of state laws targeting transgender people like her. The same story won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, and a second-place award in the national Public Media Journalists Association Award competition.
Colombini’s journalism also won third place for Public Service in Radio Journalism. The series Growing Up With Guns focused on the rising number of gun-related arrests, injuries and deaths among teens in the greater Tampa Bay area.
Morning Edition host Craig Kopp won third place in the Radio Newscast division. The same newscast received first place in the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists competition earlier this year.
And former WUSF reporter and student journalist Meghan Bowman won second place in the Student Division for Best News Reporter. for several stories including: an alternative graduation at New College; a controversial school board meeting in Hernando County; and a feature on the reopening of a farmer's market damaged during Hurricane Ian. That competition pitted students in all media against each other, and Bowman was the lone broadcast reporter to place in that division.
Bowman, who interned and worked as a part-time reporter at WUSF while attending the University of South Florida, also earned recognitions from both the FABJ and PMJA award competitions.
