2020 was a year of nonstop crises for the WPLN Newsroom. Deadly tornadoes hit Nashville the morning of the Super Tuesday primaries, March 3; the pandemic swept through just as recovery was underway; protests lasted for several weeks over the summer; a presidential debate took place; and a man blew up part of downtown on Christmas morning.
Yet despite the chaos, we did our most ambitious work ever in 2020. What you’ll hear in the audio and see in the web links is that our reporting not only responded to the news of the moment, but also shows the range of the human experience and adds vital context — telling the audience how we got here and why it matters.
Web clips:
- We used our “Curious Nashville” brand to solicit questions from the audience about unemployment and start to answer them in an understandable way:
https://wpln.org/post/curious-nashville-ask-us-your-questions-about-unemployment/
https://wpln.org/post/self-employed-in-tennessee-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ - In April, we launched a partnership with Spanish-language news outlet Nashville Noticias. Our reporters appear on their newscasts twice a week to share news:
https://www.facebook.com/nashvillenoticias/videos/3447760131929455 - An example of our creative use of Instagram, leveraging the newsroom’s field reporting to reach new audiences:
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18122884861182891/ - Our COVID-19 graphs, updated weekly (originally published last spring):
https://wpln.org/post/tennessee-covid-19-charts/ - In an effort to promote transparency and trust, we started publishing “how and why we reported this story” on each of our investigative projects. Here’s one example:
https://wpln.org/deadly-force-how-and-why-we-reported-this-story/
Audio clips (in order):
- The first on-air break from our final breaking news event of the year: a bombing in downtown Nashville.
- A rare moment of levity: “The Nashville Symphony Nearly Ran Off Rare Purple Martin Roost, But The Birds Are Still Pooping Everywhere” (Aug. 27)
- An excerpt from our eight-part podcast about public education, The Promise: “Episode 1: A Tale Of Two Schools”
- An excerpt from our 30-minute special, “Breaking Points: Black Nashvillians, In Their Own Words, On White Supremacy And Liberation” (Nov. 6)
- Arts feature: “In North Nashville, Line Dancing Becomes A Lifeline Out Of Isolation For Senior Citizens” (Sept. 22)
- An excerpt from our investigative podcast Deadly Force: “Episode 2: Action Beats Reaction” (July 20)
- An investigation into pandemic disparities: “A Nashville COVID Death Shows Many Uninsured Patients Don’t Know Their Care Should Be Free” (Aug. 28)
- Newscast submission: March 3, 2020, tornadoes
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