KU media piling up the accolades
Maybe you aren’t looking for one, but here’s a reason to become a radio news fan: KU has a winning franchise.
Kansas Public Radio, based in Lawrence and licensed to Kansas University, took home its 15th station of the year award from the Kansas Association of Broadcasters.
The win came in the Medium Market Category, where KPR competed against both commercial and not-for-profit stations. This was the third year KPR took home the trophy for overall medium market. Before then, the station competed in the Non-Commercial Category and racked up 12 victories. That is a pretty big deal in the world of state-level radio broadcasting.
KPR programs also won individual awards. Among the first-place winners: Bryan Thompson for Complete News Feature/Enterprise stories, Stephen Koranda in the Spot News category and “Right Between the Ears,” produced by Darrell Brogdon, in the Public Affairs Program category.
In other KU media news, the University Daily Kansan recently placed sixth on the Princeton Review’s rankings of college newspapers, as reported by College Media Matters.
Preceding the Kansan in descending order were: the Cornell Daily Sun, the Yale Daily News, the North Carolina Daily Tar Heel, a tie between two University of Wisconsin-Madison papers, the Badger Herald and the Daily Cardinal, and the Penn State Daily Collegian.
As Dan Reimold of College Media Matters points out, the methodology of the newspaper rankings is at the least befuddling, at worst the statistical equivalent of throwing darts at a map. They’re based on surveys that ask students how others perceive the popularity of their paper. So I offer the rankings with a grain of salt for the trusting and some beta-blockers to help with blood pressure for you methodology aficionados out there.
If you have media honors you need to unload, you can send all awards plus your KU news tips to bunglesbee@ljworld.com