The WYSO news team has been honored with one first place and three second place awards from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA).
The first place award went to “A Matter of Impact: A Look Back at the Decade Since John Crawford II Was Killed,” a one-hour documentary that revisits the community response to the killing of an unarmed Black man at a Walmart in Beavercreek.
PMJA gave second place awards to
- Episode 2 of “The Ohio Country,” a podcast that puts the experiences of Miami, Shawnee, Wyandotte, and other American Indian people at the center of a refreshed version of Ohio’s complicated past and undecided future;
- WYSO’s national coverage of the experiences of Haitians in Ohio; and
- the “Wilberforce Tornado 50th Anniversary Oral History Project,” exploring how the town of Wilberforce and its two HBCUs, Central State and Wilberforce universities, were affected by the 1974 tornado.
At the 2025 PMJA awards ceremony in Kansas City, Eichelberger Center for Community Voice Founder Neenah Ellis was also honored with the Leo C. Lee award for her outstanding contributions to public media journalism over a 50-year career. In that time, she produced for NPR's “All Things Considered,” created award-winning documentaries, wrote the New York Times bestseller “If I Live to Be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians,” and transformed WYSO through innovative community engagement, including the creation of Community Voices. Under her leadership, WYSO also secured its independence through a successful $3 million campaign and doubled staff and revenue.
***
ABOUT WYSO
WYSO is a nonprofit, community-owned public radio station serving Southwest Ohio with news, music and storytelling. We are the area’s premier NPR station, carrying flagship programs such as “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.”
WYSO’s news team provides local news and public affairs programming and is a founding member of The Ohio Newsroom, a formal collaboration of Ohio’s existing network of public radio newsrooms that creates a sustainable model for news coverage. WYSO’s music department produces unique music programs featuring hand-selected music from songwriters and bands that reach across genres. WYSO’s Eichelberger Center for Community Voices provides hands-on audio production and digital storytelling training and producers make stories that address the most pressing issues in our community including race relations, immigration, veterans affairs and more.
ABOUT THE EICHELBERGER CENTER FOR COMMUNITY VOICES
The mission of the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices is to reflect and amplify the diversity of people in the Miami Valley through audio and digital storytelling, programming, and training. Community Voices was founded by veteran radio producer Neenah Ellis in 2011. It began as a six-month class to teach nonjournalists and community members to make radio stories reflective of their lives and personal experiences. Since its inception, Community Voices has trained more than 300 diverse community members in the art of audio storytelling.
The Center engages a wide range of audiences and provides a platform for individuals to share their stories and educate their communities on issues affecting them. Participants include students and youth, veterans, BIPOC, LGBTQA+, people with disabilities, residents of urban, rural, and suburban areas, indigenous peoples, immigrants and more.