Gabriel Pietrorazio awarded prize by Military Reporters & Editors
WASHINGTON — During its annual conference for journalists, Military Reporters & Editors presented awards to the winners of the 2025 MRE Journalism Contest. Gabriel Pietrorazio wins MRE’s Best Radio News (Division 2) award for stories broadcast on KJZZ.
Award Summary
Three-part series “Native Heroes Erased”, KJZZ broadcast 4/16/2025 – 4/18/2025
Prize Category: Best Radio News Division 2, Audio journalism content broadcast via radio.
Best radio news coverage on a single topic of interest related to the military, veterans, or war, broadcast by a local station, designed primarily for local or regional audience.
Judges’ Comments:
The Trump administration’s anti-DEI directive at the Pentagon caught the attention of KJZZ reporter Gabriel Pietrorazio who produced a three-part series about US military heroes from native tribes in Arizona. Some of the historic documents, photos and stories initially scrubbed from government websites were later restored. Pietrorazio’s interviews with family members and descendants vividly illuminate the lives of the Navajo Code Talkers, Ira Hayes, a World War II marine memorialized in the Iwo Jima statue, and Lori Piestewa, the first Native American woman killed in combat, who died in the opening days of the Iraq War in 2003.
Listen to the Winning Story (compiled)
Listen to original episodes
- Part 1: Casualties of DEI war: Navajo Code Talker calls Pentagon erasing his legacy ‘a serious mistake’ (4-16-2025)
- Part 2: Ira Hayes’ relatives are ‘still here, sharing his dog tag’ despite DOD deleting details about him (4-17-2025)
- Part 3: Lori Piestewa’s family says legacy doesn’t ‘need to be plastered everywhere’ after Pentagon scrub (4-18-2025)
Journalist Biography
Gabriel Pietrorazio
Gabriel Pietrorazio is the tribal natural resources reporter for NPR member station KJZZ in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s a 2020 graduate from Hobart College in Geneva, New York, earning bachelor’s degrees in Media and Society as well as Political Science and a minor in American
Studies. A year later, he earned his master’s degree from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Before moving to the Southwest, he interned at ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” – then as a news assistant for “PBS NewsHour” – while freelancing for several local and national news outlets about Indigenous affairs. As a long-time associate member of the Native American Journalists Association – which has since been renamed the Indigenous Journalist Association – Gabriel has been closely covering Indian Country for at least six years now.
He’s received more than 50 reporting awards and fellowships from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists, Online News Association, North American Agricultural Journalists, Military Reporters & Editors, Investigative Reporters & Editors, Solutions Journalism Network, Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources, Indigenous Journalists Association, Syracuse Press Club and Arizona Press Club, among others.
Gabriel also sits as the regional vice president for the West on the North American Agricultural Journalists’ board. Lately, his local radio reporting has aired on national programs, including “Here & Now,” “The World” and NPR’s “Weekend Edition.