The following is WUNC's Breaking News Coverage Entry for the 2024 awards contest. The focus of this entry is WUNC's coverage of a shooting on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill in August.
On Aug. 28, 2023, Associate Professor Zijie Yan was fatally shot in a science building on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The attack and hours-long lockdown terrified students and faculty, who had just returned to class a week before the shooting for the start of the fall semester. WUNC responded swiftly to this breaking news story, with ongoing coverage on digital and social platforms.