WSHU Public Radio Receives More Than $29K in Grants
Funding helps support WSHU’s mission to ‘provide and encourage thoughtful discourse’
Sacred Heart University’s WSHU Public Radio Station recently received two grants totaling $29,750. Connecticut Humanities, a nonprofit affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities, awarded WSHU $4,750 for its original podcast, Still Newtown, the first CT Humanities grant to fund a podcast, and the Solutions Journalism Network awarded WSHU $25,000 to be a “climate beacon” newsroom, a newsroom with a reporter covering climate change.
Still Newtown podcast
Rima Dael, WSHU’s general manager, describes Still Newtown as “a nuanced, respectful podcast” that honors the victims and survivors of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting 10 years ago, as well as the town’s residents. “It encourages thoughtful discourse on critical issues such as school safety, mental health and community activism,” she says.
Podcast host Davis Dunavin, a WSHU reporter who covered the tragedy in 2012 for an online news site, developed the podcast in consultation with the town’s longtime newspaper, The Newtown Bee. In this compelling and thoughtful podcast, Dunavin helps the people of Newtown tell their stories the way they want them told.
Examples of podcast episodes include “In the Midst of That Morning,” a preamble to the series that features a mother who lost her daughter, as well as survivors who are now freshmen in college, as they remember the day their lives changed. In “Squeezing the Lemon,” Sandy Hook students go back to the classroom a month after the tragedy in search of a sense of normalcy. Please Care About This shows how two former Sandy Hook students grow to become advocates against gun violence.
The grant money will go toward sound, editing and post-production work by a professional who has experience with trauma-informed communities. The podcast supports WSHU’s mission to “provide our community with carefully researched and insightful coverage of important issues and events,” said Dael.
Solutions Journalism Network grant
The Solutions Journalism Network launched the Climate Beacon Newsroom Initiative in partnership with Covering Climate Now and Climate Central. This year-long program will bring together five newsrooms in the U.S. to work individually and collectively to transform their coverage of the changing climate throughout their organizations. WSHU was one of five newsrooms across the country to be selected and awarded financial support.