The UAB English Department and the Jemison Visiting Professorship in the Humanities presents Beth Shelburne, "Why I Produced a Podcast on a Man the State Wants to Kill." 

Beth Shelburne is an award-winning journalist, investigative reporter, and writer from Birmingham who has done extensive reporting on Alabama’s prison system and named a 2018 Writing for Justice Fellow with Pen America. Her narrative journalism and reporting op-eds have been published in The Los Angeles Times, The Bitter Southerner, The Daily Beast and Facing South. Her broadcast journalism has been recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the National Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Associated Press Media Editors Annual Awards.

In 2023, Shelburne’s 8-part investigative podcast Earwitness was released on all major podcast platforms. It traces a two-year investigation into the death row conviction of Toforest Johnson, who many people believe is innocent. Earwitness was named a top true crime podcast of 2023 by critics at Crime Writers On and Paste Magazine.