NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — It’s one of the most prestigious awards in broadcast journalism and WGNO has been honored with not one, but two!
Feature reporter Bill Wood and photojournalist Justin Abshire have received recognition from the Radio Television Digital News Association’s Edward R. Murrow Awards. Putting public interest above all else, the awards are named in honor of Edward Murrow, a journalism pioneer who set the standards for the highest quality of broadcast journalism.
Bill Wood wins the award for Excellence in Writing for a compilation of stories he wrote, including Big Okra, which follows the story of New Orleans resident Jack Sweeney and a towering okra plant in his backyard. Standing at 16.4 feet tall, the plant survived both Hurricane Ida and a harsh winter, and has lived on to capture a Guinness World Record for the world’s tallest stalk of okra.
Watch: Big Okra Wins Big in this New Orleans Backyard
Together as a storytelling team, the dynamic duo of Bill Wood and Justin Abshire have also won the Murrow Award for Feature Reporting for a story called Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Cleanliness.
On the heels of his 100th birthday, World War II veteran David Oreck still has the pilot license he got as a teenager. After the war, he turned a part-time job into a billion-dollar business and became a household name with the Oreck Vacuum Cleaner. Oreck died earlier this year, but his legacy still lives on in countless homes across the country.
WATCH: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Cleanliness
As a regional winner, WGNO now moves to the next level and that’s to compete nationally for the highly-coveted national Murrow Award.
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