KUNM news team brings home national and regional awards

The KUNM news team has picked up a bundle of national and regional awards for work done in 2024.

Reporters Jeanette DeDios, Kaveh Mowahed, and News Director Megan Kamerick were recognized by the Public Media Journalists Association during its annual conference in Kansas City, Mo.

Jeanette took second place for a student news feature for her story Native American voters weigh in on this election, which featured the voices of Native voters at a Trump rally just before the election.

Kaveh took first place in the news/public affairs category for a Let’s Talk New Mexico show focused on public safety and ideas for reform after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s attempt to address crime in a special session fizzled.

And Megan, working with Kaveh, took first place for audience engagement for last year’s effort to connect people during the wildfires in Ruidoso with loved ones searching for them, and also work with Source New Mexico to report their stories.

Jeanette DeDios, who came to us through the New Mexico Local News Fund Fellows program and is now a graduate student and a full-time employee with KUNM, swept the student division radio/podcast awards at the Indigenous Journalists Association.

• Best News Story
  
  • First Place - Mescalero Apache members speak out on the impact of the South Fork and Salt fires
  • Second Place - UNM Indigenous professors create first-ever tribal government textbook
  • Third Place - Native American voters weigh in on this election
• Best Feature Story
  
  • First Place - Local Diné; author on the rise in Indigenous representation and supporting Native voices in media
  • Second Place - Native American student at the center of NM Supreme Court case speaks out
  • Third Place - Artist paints car that fuses Chicano culture with Indigenous pottery craft

• Excellence in Beat Reporting

  • First Place - Coverage on New Mexico’s Radiation Exposure
  • Second Place - Coverage on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People in NM

The news team also got six awards in the Top of the Rockies – Society of Professional Journalists Region 9 (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah) in the medium-sized newsroom category

Jeanette DeDios

• Beat Reporting - First Place
  
  • Native American voters weigh in on this election
  • Mescalero Apache members speak out on the impact of the South Fork and Salt fires
  • Native American student at the center of NM Supreme Court case speaks out

Nash Jones

• Politics News – Second Place
  
  • City officials say Albuquerque's 'sanctuary city' status can withstand federal pressure
• Mental Health Feature – Second Place
  
  • Peer-led yoga in NM prison aims to cultivate inner peace and employment opportunities

Taylor Velazquez

• Politics Feature – Second Place
  
  • Democratic State Senate candidate Cindy Nava could be first former DACA recipient to win elected office

Bryce Dix

• Climate Reporting – Third Place
  
  • Beavers could be the key to fighting climate change in the Southwest

• Special Topic/Section – Caja del Rio – Third Place

  • Proposed Caja del Rio transmission project near LANL raises concerns
  • Public overwhelmingly voices opposition to nuclear lab transmission line project
  • An audio postcard from the Caja del Rio plateau