Best of 2021 – Welcome to Moab, A Service Story

Our final ‘Best Of’ KZMU News pick is here! As we look back on another year of grassroots, community-powered journalism, we reflect on our biggest and most ambitious piece yet – ‘Welcome to Moab, A Service Story.’ Lightly narrated, this 45 minute radio special prioritizes the experiences of locals working in Moab’s restaurant industry. Abstract terms like ‘worker shortages’ and ‘the housing crisis’ get deeply personal as interviewees share stories about burnout and mental health, wondering how they’ll make it in Moab another season. We gave it a ‘Best Of’ because it was our first attempt at a long-form piece and it resonated with locals as well as other communities across the country. ‘Welcome to Moab’ became the most widely shared KZMU News story of 2021.

We also want to mention the other non-narrated (and lightly narrated!) pieces of 2021 – our Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility series and our various audio portraits are very important parts of KZMU News. We aim to do more work like this in the future! Thank you for supporting KZMU, Moab community radio.

Original Broadcast
https://www.kzmu.org/welcome-to-moab-a-service-story/

Lift Up: LGBTQ+ Visibility
https://www.kzmu.org/lift-up/

2021 Audio Portraits
Blaine
https://www.kzmu.org/friday-february-26-2021/
Sonja Nicolaisen
https://www.kzmu.org/friday-april-2-2021/
Paul
https://www.kzmu.org/friday-may-21-2021/
Christoph Schork
https://www.kzmu.org/monday-november-8-2021/
Hy Thurman
https://www.kzmu.org/activist-hy-thurman-on-the-rainbow-coalition-labor-organizing/