Negar Ajayebi, Hussain Khan and Aisha Wallace-Palomares.
Three Class of 2025 audio producers—Negar Ajayebi, Hussain Khan, and Aisha Wallace-Palomares—won Best Narrative Podcast at the Society of Professional Journalists regional Mark of Excellence Awards for collegiate journalism. They secured the honor for their work on Berkeley Journalism’s flagship radio show and podcast, North Gate Radio.
“Home is Where the Harmony Is,” an audio triptych broadcast on KALX 90.7 in February 2025, asks existential questions:
If you’ve left home and can’t move back, where is home? What if you can return, but your home, neighborhood, your entire city was destroyed, then where is home? What if your home doesn’t resemble the one your parents remember, the language most people speak and the food they eat have changed, are you still home?
In it, reporter Negar Ajayebi profiles Amir Nojan, a world-renowned setar player and teacher whose small apartment in San Jose doubles as a museum of classical Iranian music and culture. Reporter Hussain Khan introduces us to Al Akhbar, a band that blends traditional Arab music with American jazz—reminding homesick listeners in the diaspora that, even in the shadow of war, coming together to feel the healing power of music still matters. Aisha Wallace-Palomares reports on how shifting demographics helped create a surprising musical act from Compton, California: El Compa Negro, an African American artist who plays regional Mexican music.
Shereen Marisol Meraji. Photo: Marlena Telvick
“What these students reported on in the Fall of 2025 feels just as relevant a year later,” says Shereen Marisol Meraji, associate professor and director of audio. “I’d argue the questions of home they explored land even harder now—in this moment defined by displacement, war, and policies that determine who gets to belong and who gets shut out.”
All three stories—originally airing on the UC Berkeley and listener-supported station KALX—went on to be picked up by NPR affiliates KQED and KALW, expanding their reach from Cal to audiences across the Bay Area and beyond.
The Mark of Excellence Awards, founded in 1972, honor the best in collegiate journalism, judged at the regional and national levels. SPJ Region 11 includes Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada and Mariana Islands. Categories are first judged on the regional level. First-place regional winners advance to the national competition.
