The KAZU News team has earned recognition from two journalism competitions.
The Public Media Journalists Association announced June 15 that in its special coverage category for 2025, “Federal Policy, Local Impact,” Elena Neale-Sacks’ ongoing look at the impacts of the second Trump administration on local agricultural production and research won second place. The entry included these two pieces:
What they want most is to feed their communities. The Trump administration is making that harder.
In the PMJA contest, KAZU competes nationally with other stations that have similar-sized newsrooms.
The Radio Television Digital News Association divides the country into regions and, within a region, has large and small market categories. California, Hawaii and Nevada make up Region 2. KAZU received four regional, small market, Edward R. Murrow awards for work in 2025.
Our winners are:
Continuing Coverage
The lasting impacts of the Moss Landing battery plant fire
Everyone contributed to our coverage of the Moss Landing fire, but Elena Neale-Sacks wrote several stories throughout the year. Scott Cohn also produced a feature.
Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Watsonville farmworkers train as doulas to help other Indigenous women
KAZU’s health reporter Ngozi Cole discovered while reporting on maternal health that a group of farmworkers identified the lack of Mixtec-speaking medical providers as a barrier to care. So they got trained as doulas and now help others.
News Series
Farm fertilizers contaminate thousands of wells in the Salinas Valley
Erin Malsbury received a USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism 2025 California Health Equity Fellowship to explore the long-term impacts of fertilizer contamination of drinking-water wells near agricultural fields in the Salinas Valley. In early 2026, we published the series in Spanish.
Sports Reporting
For surfers, Santa Cruz waves are priceless. A new report gives them a dollar value
The first study of surfonomics—the economics of surfing—came out last year and Katie Brown hit the beach to talk with surfers young and old, surfboard makers and even one of the newest kids on the block, someone selling electric-assisted e-foils.
All regional Murrow award winners go on to compete in the national competition. Those results will be announced in August.
