Editor’s Note: WHYY News launched WhatsApp, uncovered a new MOVE source, produced 100+ community events and more in 2025

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

Merry new year!

Reflecting on the past year of news stories reported by the WHYY News team is a purposeful exercise and my annual “Auld Lang Syne” moment. “Growth” and “grind” are the two adjectives fitting to summarize the WHYY News team’s work in 2025.

The WHYY newsroom was determined to tackle purposeful reporting projects while amplifying public service journalism and community engagement this past year. We call ourselves a “mighty” newsroom, and it suits us perfectly for what we accomplish each week in service to our audience. With 20 news reporters covering three states in the Delaware Valley, the strategic decisions about our news coverage plans resonate with our audiences. We are among the WHYY content teams that collectively contribute to reaching 1.5 million people in the Greater Philadelphia region each week.

Here are some 2025 WHYY newsroom highlights:

• Reporter Tom MacDonald reported an exclusive story on the MOVE Bombing 40th anniversary, uncovering a new source who sat down for his first interview ever on the tragic event — a helicopter pilot who warned against dropping the bomb. MacDonald explored the sad day in Philly history via audio reports, written stories, a MOVE at 40 podcast and a documentary video with videographer Kimberly Paynter.
• The newsroom expanded its pop-up newsroom model to include focusing on an issue championed by a WHYY audience member. In October, during our pop-up newsroom in Northeast Philadelphia, an attendee shared her concern that services were lacking for foster parents in Philadelphia. The news team listened and created three pop-up newsrooms, with adjacent foster care resource fairs, in New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. You can read about this civic dialogue exercise in my previous editor’s note explaining the “Caring for Kids” editorial project, which was supported by the Every Voice, Every Vote initiative.

• The newsroom staff took on numerous serial newsroom-wide projects. This approach expanded our beat work and built a sense of community inside the newsroom, with every team and beat contributing to these series of stories: Philadelphia at 250, Caring for Kids, Every Voice, Every Vote, Growing Golden: Aging with Purpose and Creativity Sparks Success.
• WHYY News launched a WhatsApp project in service to Latino communities in Delaware, powered by reporter Johnny Perez-Gonzalez. The messages are written and spoken in Spanish. Perez-Gonzalez hosts the channel, posts weekly audio and video messages, shares news stories and curates communication as the community engages throughout the week. The initiative was made possible thanks to a two-year Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant and has grown audience interest and engagement. We are partnering with Hoy en Delaware on this initiative and received support on developing the project from freelancers Jesenia De Moya Correa and Martin Alfaro. The newsroom has established two website sections in English (First State Focus) and Spanish (Primer Estado) to highlight the more than 300 stories generated as part of the CPB grant work.

• WHYY News’ civic dialogue work was topical and timely in 2025 — and all events were free, thanks to support from our partners and members. We hosted a discussion that delved into the impact of immigration on the Greater Philadelphia region at WHYY in partnership with The Welcoming Center. The newsroom also hosted two civic dialogue events with an eye toward media reflection and learnings — the Civic News Summit and the Black Men in Media Summit, which provided free health screenings for stroke assessment, blood sugar and blood pressure to more than 40 people. Billy Penn hosted a series of town halls on topics such as SEPTA, safer streets and the city’s efforts to address drug addiction and recovery. Maiken Scott and The Pulse team hosted a meaningful event on diabetes awareness at Esperanza and a resourceful community discussion on menopause. Watch the “Reimaging Menopause” conversation here. The WHYY news and programming teams worked together to launch “Ask Governor Meyer,” the once-a-month one-on-one discussion with the First State’s governor in our studios. We also launched the “News Jersey Diaries: From Shore Towns to Small Towns” series funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to share stories from South Jersey towns.
• WHYY News is fortunate to center community voices by design. Our organization chart prioritizes serving our audience with a unique Community and Engagement Team that is part of the newsroom. The team’s three community members — Tony Cuffie, Brisa Luzzi Castro and Rushawn Stanley — are employed by WHYY to work inside and with the newsroom to better inform our coverage and further expand the reach of our civic dialogue work. That singular focus paid huge dividends in 2025. The team created, participated in, hosted and/or produced more than 100 community events in 2025. Yes, you read that right. The signature community program that WHYY executes is the Bridging Blocks program in partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia. Over the past two years, these programs have significantly increased in volume. It’s remarkable that we had more than 2,000 attendees at these WHYY News community events in 2025. We are proud to center this work, and the investment to bring community voices close to our newsmaking pays off as we generate new sources and cover news topics that resonate with our audiences and underserved communities.

We focus our journalistic work on public service to the community and we are honored when recognized for it. The WHYY newsroom received a range of journalism awards in 2025, such as a National Edward R. Murrow Award in the Digital category for our Climate Fixers series and 23 Keystone Awards, among others.

Here is a sampling of stories produced by the WHYY News staff in 2025:

• Tom MacDonald and Nate Harrington: Philadelphia’s biggest overtime earners triple their base salary through working extra hours
• Susan Phillips: New Jersey Pine Barrens offer up answers to tough climate questions
• Kenny Cooper, Phil Davis and Emily Neil: 7 killed, at least 22 injured in fiery Northeast Philly plane crash; city stresses residents call 911 to report debris
• Alan Yu: Why many Philadelphia doctors now use AI to record patient visits
• Kenny Cooper: Media Borough has a new mayor for the first time in 3 decades. Meet Joi Washington
• Sophia Schmidt: Philadelphia tests out ‘cool pavement’ in Hunting Park to combat summer heat
• Cris Barrish: ‘I’ll be with you for the rest of my life’: Daily automated calls a lifeline for older Delaware adults who live alone
• Nicole Leonard: How a Philadelphia outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in 1976 led to modern-day investigations and surveillance
• Peter Crimmins: After nearly 30 years of dreaming, a $15M state-of-the-art equestrian arena opens in Philly’s Fairmount Park
• David Matthau: A Burlington County, N.J. high school’s dance program is helping students succeed academically
• Dillon Dodson: For those still out of the loop, here is what ‘6-7’ means
• Meir Rinde: For SEPTA Regional Rail riders, the headaches just keep coming
• Emma Lee and Kimberly Paynter: 2025 in photos: key moments from the Philly region
• WHYY News staff: 2025 Super Bowl coverage

The WHYY newsroom expanded its horizons over the past year by creating new community programs, news content streams and innovative projects. Looking ahead, our newsroom is readying itself for numerous impactful projects and partnerships in 2026, such as covering the semiquincentennial and 250th celebrations across the Philadelphia region. Plus, the newsroom has developed a partnership with UPenn’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies funded by the Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial and will host our third free Civic News Summit on April 3 and 4, 2026, at WHYY. We will expand our Delaware operations thanks to the support of the Longwood Foundation and the news staff will produce stories on youth voting as part of a William Penn Foundation grant project.  

It is exciting to develop new approaches to our journalism work and distribution of that content. I am foreshadowing a few news projects that we will birth in 2026. The WHYY newsroom will launch a weekly podcast, called The Source, that will highlight our best audio journalism. We will also begin a SMS texting project with Billy Penn (sign up for text alerts here) and a news content initiative called “Sisterly Affection,” inspired by the first female mayor of the city of Philadelphia, which highlights women trailblazers across the Delaware Valley in the areas of politics, health, education and community.

With disruption becoming the norm, including the development and application of artificial intelligence and the rescission of federal funding for public media this past year, the news cycle can often feel chaotic. WHYY’s journalism team is steady and focused on producing quality explanatory journalism for our audiences. We welcome hearing from you. Share your story ideas by emailing the news team at newsroom@whyy.org. Due to the volume of messages, we may not be able to reply to each email, but the editorial team considers each inbound story idea or pitch.

Please support WHYY by becoming a member or donating so the newsroom may continue its mission to deliver free, fact-based local news and information services that are available to all.

Sincerely Yours in Journalism,

Sarah Glover
WHYY Vice President of News & Civic Dialogue