This is KGOU

A story from Colorado College of a student grappling with finding her birth father OR an investigation from Penn State University into an amateur boxer's long-ago brush with The Greatest. How can you choose?

Well, we couldn't. After a judging process like no other, this year's Student Podcast Challenge: College Edition ended up with two grand-prize winners.

Within the last three years, many American newsrooms, including NPR's, have reduced both the frequency and prominence with which they name suspects in mass shootings.

The events of 2020 influenced our literary habits: The pandemic drove many Americans to reading. After the killing of George Floyd, the subsequent reckoning on anti-Black racism sparked a surge of interest in Black authors and a focus on underrepresented writers.

Photojournalist David Gilkey was 50 years old when he was killed in an Afghanistan combat zone in 2016.

What he left behind was a body of work that told human stories in moments of desperation and a high standard for the visual work that would come out of NPR, a radio-first outlet. A new book, Pictures on the Radio, collects just a portion of that work across his career.

Updated 4:50 p.m. ET

Even before the first Trump supporter breached the U.S. Capitol last week, American journalists were already sifting through words that have not historically been applied to American democracy — words like coup and kleptocracy.

On the first Sunday of 2021, journalists in two competing Washington newsrooms were listening to a leaked recording of President Donald Trump demanding that Georgia officials find him more votes and change the outcome of their election last November.

As 2020 comes to a close and we welcome a new year, NPR staff reflect on their work in the podcast world. Here are some of their favorite podcasts of the year and stay tuned for what they have in store next!

What was the favorite episode of your podcast that you worked on this year?

For almost 50 years, listeners all over America have counted on NPR as a daily source of information and entertainment. Every day, millions connect with NPR and NPR Member stations across the country for everything from pop culture podcasts to the nightly news.

NPR assembled a team of journalists in 2013 to plow new ground at the intersection of race and culture. In 2016, the Code Switch team launched a podcast. Last week, Apple named the show the podcast of 2020.

The first thing listeners hear, after the sponsorship message, is a warning: "This podcast is explicit in every way."

In a note to programming staff, SVP of Programming and Audience Development Anya Grundmann announced the following staffing update:

Dear Colleagues,

This Election Day is shaping up to be unlike any other. Americans are shattering early voting records as coronavirus cases climb, and questions loom about the timing and outcome of the actual results.

To some consumers, NPR is the sane alternative to partisan shouting on cable news. For others, NPR is lulling its audience to sleep with reassuring false equivalence.

Listeners have long told NPR that they find it appealing because of its approach to news as a story to be told, and the meaning of that story to be discovered. But times change, and there are signs that for NPR (and many other American newsrooms), that philosophy now repels some consumers who are driven to distraction by the lack of outrage.

This weekend, teams across NPR (virtually) took home eight Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association. A huge congratulations to all of the teams below:

• Winner, "Excellence in Innovation" - the NPR Student Podcast Challenge, from the Education team.

After 8 years as host of Morning Edition, David Greene is stepping back from hosting to focus on other projects. In what he calls the 'hardest decision in his career', David will leave NPR and his sleep-defying schedule on December 29, 2020. NPR will be undertaking a national search to find David's successor.

Here's an excerpt from his note to NPR staff:

In the wake of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, one of the most popular stories NPR produced was a 9-minute essay by Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg on her 48-year friendship with the legendary judge.

Hispanic Heritage Month starts today and goes until October 15. Some of our podcasts have special programming during this month and we also have two curated playlists you can access from your preferred mobile device. Many of these podcasts feature Latinx stories all year long, not just from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Check them out and check out this space for more updates throughout the month.