PMJA Award for Best Use of Sound-- "Monsanto, Anniston, and Taylor." Alabama Public Radio
“In 1944, the D-Day invasion took place during World War two. That same year PCBs were officially declared toxic. But nobody told my great grandfather. Monsanto salesmen were warned to stay clear of the chemicals. That information didn’t filter down to any of the black men working maintenance jobs at the plant. The company didn’t even provide protective gear,” said Taylor Phillips, of Anniston, Alabama.
Please find Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the PMJA Award for Best Use of Sound, titled “Monsanto, Anniston, and Taylor.” The APR news team spent ten months, with no budget, on this project.
Please click here to listen to the feature...
https://www.apr.org/news/2023-08-30/monsanto-anniston-and-taylor
2023 marked two decades since the Monsanto Chemical Company settled with residents of Anniston, Alabama. 20,000 people in this mostly African American town blamed chemicals called PCBs, produced at a local factory, for medical problems ranging from cancer to birth defects. Twenty years later, Anniston still bears the scars.
Please find Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the PMJA Award for Best Use of Sound, titled “Bad Chemistry: Monsanto, Anniston, and Taylor.” The APR team spent eight months, with no budget, producing this program.
The impact of Monsanto’s PCBs in Anniston didn’t harm one generation, but many. APR news worked with twenty-four-year-old Taylor Phillips to tell her story of how these chemicals killed members of her family in Anniston, going back to her great grandfather in 1930. This feature began as an academic paper by Phillips at Rice University. She’s now entering medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.
The APR news team used archival sound ranging from Louis Armstrong, to the fireside chats of FDR, to the D-Day Invasion, to the lunar landing of Apollo 11, to NPR’s All Things Considered to illustrate the passage of time during Phillips’ presentation.
Respectfully submitted.
Please find Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the PMJA Award for Best Use of Sound, titled “Monsanto, Anniston, and Taylor.” The APR news team spent ten months, with no budget, on this project.
Please click here to listen to the feature...
https://www.apr.org/news/2023-08-30/monsanto-anniston-and-taylor
2023 marked two decades since the Monsanto Chemical Company settled with residents of Anniston, Alabama. 20,000 people in this mostly African American town blamed chemicals called PCBs, produced at a local factory, for medical problems ranging from cancer to birth defects. Twenty years later, Anniston still bears the scars.
Please find Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the PMJA Award for Best Use of Sound, titled “Bad Chemistry: Monsanto, Anniston, and Taylor.” The APR team spent eight months, with no budget, producing this program.
The impact of Monsanto’s PCBs in Anniston didn’t harm one generation, but many. APR news worked with twenty-four-year-old Taylor Phillips to tell her story of how these chemicals killed members of her family in Anniston, going back to her great grandfather in 1930. This feature began as an academic paper by Phillips at Rice University. She’s now entering medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.
The APR news team used archival sound ranging from Louis Armstrong, to the fireside chats of FDR, to the D-Day Invasion, to the lunar landing of Apollo 11, to NPR’s All Things Considered to illustrate the passage of time during Phillips’ presentation.
Respectfully submitted.
Taylor Phillips