In our frenetic, fast-paced digital world, people are hungry to feel something online – to connect beyond the tweets and clicks with something that nourishes their soul. And here at Yahoo!, we have unbelievable storytellers in our midst. The winning piece was one of ten “digital documentaries” produced for Yahoo!’s coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  As we thought about how Yahoo! could cover the anniversary in a unique and interactive way, we decided to partner with the National September 11 Memorial and Museum to create a special memorial site for those lost, with the goal of telling 30 stories (print, video, slideshow) in the month leading up to September 11, 2011. Through a multimedia mosaic anchored by our documentary series, the team brought digital storytelling to life with profiles of individuals whose lives were changed on September 11, 2001. Many people on the Yahoo! Studios team volunteered to produce, shoot and edit these stories. The Murrow Award-winning story profiled the Williams family. 

24-year-old Kevin Williams lost his young life in the World Trade Center’s south tower on September 11, 2001. After Kevin’s death, his family stumbled upon a bag of red gravel among his things, not knowing what it was… until his brother remembered one of his last memories with Kevin, watching a Yankees game from front row seats. After the realization, his family decided to create a foundation that sends kids who could not otherwise afford it to baseball and softball camps. In one of the most memorable lines of the piece, Kevin’s dad left viewers with a profound takeaway: “Kevin was a do-er. He had a dream and he would follow it through…every morning before I get up out of bed, I remember that he was a do-er, and I’m going to do the same thing.” What a great lesson for us all. After our piece ran, donations from Yahoo! viewers enabled the family to send 75 additional kids to baseball camp. [For more background on the story, click here]

The Murrow Award is certainly a tribute to the team who made this piece happen. The award is also a tribute to a special family who found purpose out of pain and are changing lives in their son’s name every year. It’s such a gift for us to tell stories because they should be told – and to have a platform with millions of people waiting to hear our stories. 
 

If you want to learn more about Yahoo! Studios, stop by and visit one of our studios in Santa Monica, Sunnyvale or NY – or follow us on Facebook or Twitter!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                 By Anna Robertson, Head of Yahoo! Studios