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2022 Ohio SPJ Awards - Best Reporter in Ohio - Kabir Bhatia

In 2021, Kabir Bhatia really demonstrated the journalistic drive, tenacity, doggedness and the flexibility in the stories he reported and produced for WKSU.

A number of his stories throughout the year were driven by the pandemic, pursuing answers to a range of questions about COVID-19, the effectiveness of the vaccines and what to do if you lost your vaccination card as well as dispelling myths raised during the pandemic. He also had time to report numerous other hard news stories, including efforts by renters in Akron to form unions to address sub-standard housing issues, the impact supply chain disruptions were having on the Port of Cleveland and the much-anticipated name change of Cleveland's Major League Baseball Team.

With all this, he still found time to lead WKSU's listener engagement tool, "OH Really?" where our audience is encouraged to submit their own questions about life in Northeast Ohio and join us in the reporting process. In this endeavor, Kabir tackled a range of whimsical, and sometimes offbeat stories including a look at why Cleveland doesn't have its own major league hockey team and an investigation into what really happened to "Helltown" in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (and if it really even existed in the first place). He answered one listener's question about cremations "and how they handle all these implants that people are getting" and found the answer from another person who wanted to know what was causing drones to stop operating in one part of Stark County.

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