Colorado Public Radio has won a prestigious national award for audio reporting.
The Radio Television Digital News Association awarded CPR News a 2024 National Murrow Award for “A Year Since Club Q” in its News Documentary category, Large Market Radio division.
The documentary, part of CPR News’ Colorado In-Depth series, tells the individual stories of four people who were present for the November 2022 shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs that killed five people. Taken together, the stories show how each person survives and recovers from tragedy in their own way. The documentary adapted and packaged the stories that originally aired on KRCC, which is a partner public radio station in Colorado Springs run by Colorado Public Radio.
A team of people at CPR News and KRCC contributed to the documentary: Abigail Beckman reported and produced it; Andrea Chalfin and Rachel Estabrook edited it; and Pedro Lumbraño contributed mixing and sound design.
“I'm extremely proud of the national recognition for this work. It's a true testament to Abigail's approach from start to finish that people who survived such a horrific event trusted her to present their stories,” said Chalfin, who is also the managing editor of KRCC. “She did so with patience, sensitivity, and a sense of true responsibility, and it's humbling to see it recognized with a national Murrow Award.”
It is CPR's second National Murrow award overall and its first since "A Columbine Diary" was named best Large Market Documentary in 2000.
CPR won nine regional Murrow awards this year, including for “A Year Since Club Q.” Entries that win Regional Murrow awards are then considered for national awards. CPR competes in the Large Market Radio division of the competition as one of the 50 biggest radio markets in the nation.
You can listen to the documentary here.
This is Beckman’s second national Murrow. She also won a regional Murrow award this year for Excellence in Writing for “Take a look inside the Friar’s Fork & Sanctuary.” Estabrook won the 2024 regional Murrow awards in the Breaking News Coverage and Podcast categories for special coverage of the criminal trials involving Elijah McClain's death and Parched, respectively. Colorado Public Radio also won newsroom-wide regional Murrow awards in the Digital and Overall Excellence categories.
