MORGANTOWN — The nonprofit digital news outlet, 100 Days in Appalachia, incubated at the West Virginia University Reed College of Media Innovation Center, was named a 2021 recipient of a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award.
The publication was honored in the hard news category for its coverage of the rise of domestic extremism in the region and beyond.
“On day 100 of our initial pop-up publication, we watched as the national media flocked to Pikeville, Ky., to report on the white nationalist groups who had gathered, months before the tragedy at Charlottesville,” said Dana Coester, a professor in the WVU Reed College of Media and editor in chief for 100 Days in Appalachia. “That day we decided to commit to covering this topic in our region and beyond through the important cultural and contextual lens that no one else could provide. This work is at the center of who we would become as a news outlet and we are proud it has sustained itself well beyond that initial commitment of 100 days.”
That commitment, Coester said, has included thousands of hours of research and reporting from the publication’s team of journalists and editors and in-depth training for journalists across the country who cover this topic on local and regional levels.
Among that team of 100 Days journalists is Report for America corps member Chris Jones whose series of stories titled, “Framing Domestic Extremism in Appalachia and Beyond” was the Murrow Award recipient.
The Edward R. Murrow Awards were established in 1971 by the Radio Television Digital News Association to honor outstanding achievements in broadcast and digital journalism.
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