M.L. Schultze named Reporter of the Year
WKSU staff was honored with 11 awards from the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors (OAPME) in a ceremony held March 24 in Columbus, Ohio. Top honors went to WKSU for General Excellence – Radio, the fourth consecutive year the newsroom earned the acknowledgement. The OAPME Awards reflect standout work created in 2017.
WKSU Reporter/Digital Editor M.L. Schultze came away the big winner of the OAPME Awards event with four first-place awards – more than any other broadcast journalist in the 2017 contest – including Best Reporter. Ms. Schultze was honored for: Best Broadcast Writing for her story of an Akron mother who feared deportation and separation from her children; Best Enterprise Reporting for a report on a rural Ohio ride-hailing service; and Best Investigative Reporting for her examination on the role that race and past drug crises have played in Ohio’s response to the opioid epidemic.
For the second year in a row, Reporter/Host Amanda Rabinowitz was named Best Anchor for her work as local host of NPR’s Morning Edition. Ms. Rabinowitz also earned a first-place prize for Best Sportscast for her weekly Wednesday conversations with Plain Dealer sports commentator Terry Pluto, along with a second-place award for Best Feature Reporting for her recurring Shuffle segment. Launched in 2017, Shuffle airs on Thursdays and highlights local music in Northeast Ohio.
Reporter/Producer Kabir Bhatia was recognized for Best Use of Sound for his story on Dragon Boat races that raised money for breast cancer research, bringing WKSU News its seventh first-place award of the day. Second-place OAPME Awards went to the WKSU staff for its continuing coverage of the opioid epidemic in Northeast Ohio and to local All Things Considered Host/Producer Jeff St. Clair in the Newscast category.
The Associated Press is a not-for-profit news cooperative representing 1,400 newspapers and 5,000 broadcast stations in the United States.
WKSU is an award-winning public radio station and service of Kent State University that broadcasts to 22 counties in Northeast Ohio from the station’s primary signal at 89.7. WKSU content also can be heard over WKRW 89.3 (Wooster), WKRJ 91.5 (Dover/New Philadelphia), WKSV 89.1 (Thompson), WNRK 90.7 (Norwalk), W239AZ 95.7 (Ashland) and W234CX 94.7 (Mansfield). The station adds WKSU-2 Folk Alley, WKSU-3 The Classical Channel and WKSU-4 The News Channel over HD Radio and as streaming audio at www.wksu.org.
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Media Contact:
Ann VerWiebe, verwiebe@wksu.org, 330-672-9153