Cedar Key hurricane recovery video wins national Murrow Award for UF journalism grad

A video documenting Cedar Key’s recovery from Hurricanes Debby, Idalia and Helene has won a national journalism award, the University of Florida’s WUFT News reported this week.

Nicole Borman, who graduated with a B.S. in journalism in 2026, received the Excellence in Video Hard News Student Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association for “Rebuilding paradise: How a Florida coastal town is bouncing back after three consecutive hurricanes.” Borman filmed and edited the video with guidance from UFCJC Journalism Chair Harrison Hove. It was published on WUFT’s website and YouTube channel and documents how Cedar Key residents rebuilt after the three storms struck the island in rapid succession in 2024.

What the Murrow Awards recognize

The RTDNA’s Edward R. Murrow Awards are a long-running national honor for broadcast and digital journalism, judged by working journalists and named for the CBS correspondent. WUFT, the public broadcasting station operated by UFCJC, said three awards went to current or former student journalists and station staff this year. The awards were presented Oct. 12 at a gala in New York City.

Besides Borman’s Cedar Key video, UFCJC students earned the Excellence in Digital Reporting Student Award for “The Price of Paradise,” a five-part project on Costa Rica’s tourism industry produced by 10 students under Senior Lecturer Cynthia Barnett and conservation filmmaker Gabby Salazar. That project examined how government policy changes and rising visitor numbers are affecting Costa Rican residents, a story outside Florida but produced through the same UF program.

WUFT also won the Digital Award in the Small Market Radio category for its agricultural and environmental coverage, overseen by Report for America Corps Member Rose Schnabel. The station did not detail in this release which specific stories made up that entry.

Why Cedar Key is the throughline

For readers on this coast, the Borman video is the piece with direct local weight. It covers the compounding damage Cedar Key absorbed in 2024, Debby’s storm surge in August, Idalia’s earlier pass, and Helene’s hit that fall, and how residents and the working waterfront responded in the aftermath. The video has been publicly available on WUFT’s site and YouTube channel since its original publication, giving islanders and former residents a chance to see their own recovery story recognized on a national stage.

WUFT’s release does not specify a runtime, publication date, or additional production credits beyond Borman and Hove, and it does not describe the video’s content beyond the general framing of rebuilding after three hurricanes. The station also did not say whether additional Cedar Key-focused reporting fed into the Small Market Radio award for agricultural and environmental coverage.

The bigger picture for the program

UFCJC’s release frames the three awards as recognition for both current students and recent graduates, eleven in total across the three winning entries, plus Dean Hub Brown and CBS anchor Scott Pelley and WUFT general manager Kimberly Blum, who are named in connection with the announcement. The station did not specify Pelley’s or Blum’s roles beyond being named alongside the award recipients.

No further action items, comment periods, or public meetings accompany this announcement. It is a recognition story, not a regulatory or budget decision, and it does not change any funding, staffing or coverage commitments at WUFT. For Cedar Key, the practical takeaway is that a piece of local recovery journalism, produced by a UF student under faculty supervision, has drawn national attention to how this small Gulf coast community absorbed three hurricanes in roughly a year and kept going.