WXXI Education Reporter Noelle Evans has won a national Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).
The prestigious award was in the category of Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Evans won for a story she did in May 2022, ‘Indian Boarding Schools Tried to Eradicate Their Language, Now the Seneca are Bringing it Back.’
The story focused on the Seneca language being at risk of extinction, like hundreds of Indigenous languages in North America.
For about 100 years, some Seneca people have worked to revitalize their language, which was largely eradicated as generations of Native American children were forced to attend more than 400 boarding schools that operated in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Evans visited a Seneca language immersion school on the Tonawanda territory where students from grade school to college-levels learn the intricacies of Seneca language, and teachers work to pass down traditions.
Evans took on the role of education reporter at WXXI in 2022 after two-and-a-half years on general assignment.
Her previous newsroom experience includes working in Quito, Ecuador for a multi-national Latin American media organization.
She also freelances for NPR and BBC, with a particular focus on Indigenous affairs and environment reporting.