The Blue Ridge Public Radio news team took second place in its division of a national competition that recognizes outstanding audience engagement by journalists.
The recent honor stems from BPR's audience engagement following Hurricane Helene, which included launching, in the middle of the disaster, a text-only website so that more residents could access essential news and information despite widespread cellular outages.
“After Hurricane Helene, we quickly adapted to meet our community’s needs,” said Stephanie Rogers, BPR’s manager of audience engagement strategy.
“We shared daily updates in English and Spanish, gathered audience questions to guide our reporting and questions for public officials, and launched new tools like a low-bandwidth website, a text alert service, and a recovery-focused newsletter. It was a time of tremendous innovation for our small newsroom.”
BPR is part of PMJA’s Division C (mid-sized newsroom). The award was announced late last month during the Public Media Journalist Association’s annual meeting and conference, held in Kansas City. Montana Public Radio took first place for audience engagement in the division for its 2024 “Voter Voices” elections coverage.
PMJA’s audience engagement award emphasizes programs and news campaigns that foster meaningful connections with the community. Submissions include news station initiatives that go beyond traditional broadcasting by actively involving listeners in the news process.
“This award is a recognition of the way we serve our community through news and information, which is our highest mission at BPR. It was the honor of a lifetime to connect the people of Western North Carolina to critically important information during the storm through our journalism,” Rogers said this week.
In addition, BPR staff collected two top awards from PMJA this year: Former news director Laura Lee won the 2025 Editor of the Year Award, and reporter Gerard Albert III received the association’s inaugural “Public Media New Voices” award.
In recent months, the BPR news team has been recognized with regional and national awards for its work telling local stories and providing essential information to the public during the worst disaster in North Carolina's history. The slate of awards has included some of the most prestigious given to broadcast and digital news organizations, including four regional Edward R. Murrow honors. BPR’s selection means the staff is in the running for the 2025 national Edward R. Murrow award, given by the Radio Television Digital News Association.
