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National Edward R. Murrow Awards Honor Public Media News, Innovation

August 18, 2025

From Marketplace’s continuing coverage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore to Blue Ridge Public Radio’s coverage of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina, public media excelled in the 2025 national Edward R. Murrow Awards. Public media news organizations won a total of 39 awards announced last week by the Radio Television Digital News Association to honor outstanding achievements in broadcast and digital journalism during 2024.

The awards affirm public media’s quality journalism, highlighting a breadth of issues and voices locally, regionally, and nationally. NPR and Boston’s WBUR led with three awards each as public radio continued its dominance, winning 13 out of 16 awards in both the large and small market radio categories as well as six awards in the network radio category.

Public radio stations supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have historically dominated the small and large market radio categories of this awards program. Earlier this year, public radio stations won 93% of all the 2025 Regional Murrows in the U.S. small market radio categories, winning every single award in eight of the 13 U.S. regions. The prevalence of these locally managed and operated public radio stations demonstrates the critical role that they play in delivering high-quality news in rural areas of the country, where many newsrooms have diminished in size or have shut down entirely.

Notably, awards in the Excellence in Innovation categories were won by four different public media organizations, including NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge Grand Prize winner The Monsters We Create and Can You Survive Indiana’s Legislative Session?, an Indiana Public Broadcasting News interactive game based on The Oregon Trail.

RTDNA will honor the award winners October 13 at Gotham Hall in New York City. Public media winners, by category:

Network Radio

Large Market Radio

Small Market Television

Small Market Radio

Large Digital News Organization

  • Investigative Reporting, South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning, The Associated Press and PBS FRONTLINE
  • News Series: Lethal Restraint, The Associated Press, PBS FRONTLINE, The Howard Center for Investigative Reporting (University of Maryland and Arizona State University)

Small Digital News Organization

  • News Series: The Injured: KFF Health News and KCUR
     
Station Spotlight

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