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WGCU News Wins 11 Florida AP Broadcasters Awards

Rachel Iacovone
/
WGCU

The WGCU News team won 11 awards in the Florida Associated Press Broadcasters Awards competition for its work in 2018, topping last year's total of 10.

The winning entries range widely in topics of interest to Southwest Florida — from politics to environmental concerns, human trafficking and immigration to lighter topics like sports and wine.

 

WGCU placed first for the following stories:

Feature | Hard News: Rachel Iacovone, “Everglades City Family Still Living in the Backyard a Year After Hurricane Irma.”

Feature | Light News: Andrea Perdomo, “The Holidays with Wotts Mercy.”

General Assignment: Rachel Iacovone, “Children of Immigrants Join Rally After ICE Arrests in Collier County.”

Mid-Term Elections Reporter Assignment: Andrea Perdomo and Julie Glenn, “Fort Myers Native Matt Caldwell Claims Have Won Florida Agriculture Commissioner Race.

Use of Sound for Radio: Julie Glenn, “Scientists Look for a Link Between Lake Okeechobee Releases and Red Tide.”

 

WGCU placed second for the following:

Breaking News: Andrea Perdomo, “Shorebirds Fall Out of The Sky on a Southwest Florida Beach”

Continuing Coverage: Julie Glenn, Rachel Iacovone and Andrea Perdomo, “Red Tide and Blue Green Algae Converge in Southwest Florida Waters”

Public Affairs: Julie Glenn, Jessica Meszaros and Rachel Iacovone, “Continuing the Conversation About Sex Trafficking Awareness Beyond the Month of January”

Weather Reporting: Rachel Iacovone, “Hurricane Michael Impacts Southwest Florida Communities”

Sports Feature: Rachel Iacovone, “Everblades’ Strong Season Ends on Home Ice”

Digital Programming: Julie Glenn and Gina Birch, “Grape Minds Podcast – Wine in a Can”

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.