David Plazas leads The Tennessean’s Opinion and Engagement team, which won the Online News Association’s international award for Excellence in Newsletters Portfolio for the Black Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Plazas also curates the Latino TN Voices newsletter. According to the announcement on Sept. 23: “The judges were thrilled to see the winning organization launch newsletters to cover and engage with critical communities in the area.” This is part of an effort that began in 2020 to change the way The Tennessean covers communities of color from telling stories about them to telling stories for, with and by them. This has resulted in a substantial increase of guest opinion columns and podcast interviews as well as a closed Facebook group and live Storytellers events at noted venues, the National Museum of African American Music and Plaza Mariachi.