Journalism Alum Receives Prestigious Awards

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This summer, an alum and adjunct instructor in Southern’s School of Journalism and Communication was awarded one of the most coveted honors in broadcast journalism: a Peabody. David Barasoain, ’89, won the award for the podcast “Buried Truths,” which he produces with a team that includes Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Hank Klibanoff as the host. The podcast also received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award for radio.

Launched last year, the first season of “Buried Truths” tells the story of Isaiah Nixon, an African American man killed in 1948 for exercising his right to vote.

“If you really boil it down, there is this man who was killed in front of his family, and nobody knew it, and nobody cared to know about it,” Barasoain said. “This isn’t just busywork for us. We’re doing all of this for a reason. The Peabody mantra is ‘stories that matter.’ They chose us because it was an important story.”

Barasoain began his career in radio as a student working at Southern’s classical radio station, Classical 90.5 WSMC. After 10 years at Adventist World Radio, Barasoain began working for WABE in Atlanta, where he is the director of radio production. He has taught as an adjunct at Southern since 2005.