Podcast Examining Gun Violence Wins Webby Award

A pod­cast fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and pro­duced by Lemon­a­da Media has earned a 2023 Web­by Award.

Called Last Day, the pod­cast series devotes its third sea­son to exam­in­ing the issue of gun vio­lence in Amer­i­ca. One episode in par­tic­u­lar — ​“A Love Sto­ry” — earned the series its Web­by Award win. Last Day host and Lemon­a­da co-founder Stephanie Wit­tels Wachs spends the episode talk­ing to the fam­i­ly and friends of a 19-year-old who died by sui­cide. Their con­ver­sa­tion pulls men­tal health issues for chil­dren, youth and young adults into the spotlight.

The Web­by Awards — dubbed the Oscars of the inter­net — are a cov­et­ed badge of excel­lence in the dig­i­tal media world. Lemon­a­da Media’s entry was con­sid­ered among near­ly 14,000 sub­mis­sions from all 50 states and more than 70 coun­tries, accord­ing to the Web­by Award team.

Lis­ten to the Episode

Please note that this episode con­tains sounds of gun­shots and detailed descrip­tions of suicide.

Over the course of Last Day’s third sea­son, Wachs and her team hear from fam­i­lies who have lost loved ones to gun vio­lence and from com­mu­ni­ty groups that are work­ing to reduce gun-relat­ed deaths. One such group — CHRIS 180 in Atlanta, Geor­gia — has received fund­ing from the Casey Foun­da­tion and offers behav­ioral health and hous­ing sup­port, as well as youth-focused services.

Casey sup­port­ed the Last Day series to help pro­mote com­mu­ni­ty efforts aimed at reduc­ing the num­ber of lives lost to gun vio­lence and to help ele­vate the plat­forms shar­ing their sto­ries. Oth­er Last Day pod­cast series fun­ders include Every­town for Gun Safe­ty, the Kende­da Fund, Levi Strauss & Co. and the Pritzk­er Puck­er Fam­i­ly Foundation.

Read about men­tal health chal­lenges among chil­dren and youth