About Elizabeth

Elizabeth Sims is a digital storyteller at WBIR in Knoxville, Tennessee where she does everything from documentary series on historic sites to virtual hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains to the latest TikTok trends and more.

She was hired at WBIR to create the digital storyteller position in 2018 after graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Since then, she's garnered three Emmy nominations for Interactive Media and Innovation, four Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for Innovation and Digital Content, a National Edward R. Murrow Award for Digital Content, and a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation.

Elizabeth got involved with the week-long National Press Photographers Association News Video Workshop, now known as The Workshop, hosted at OU’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2016 as a student volunteer. In 2020, she was invited back as a guest speaker for the Virtual Workshop to lead discussions on digital storytelling and story pitching. She officially joined the faculty in 2022 for the workshop’s 60th year. On faculty, she shares her storytelling experiences across all digital platforms and co-manages the workshop’s social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Elizabeth got her start in journalism by writing for her high school newspaper, The Sidekick. She fell in love with digital media in college through the OU Covers program following the 2016 presidential election, producing a documentary about refugees in Oklahoma, and covering the 2018 teacher walk-outs from the Oklahoma State Capitol. In 2017, she was selected as an Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation investigative reporting fellow for the award-winning News21 program out of Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism. This News21 project called Troubled Water won a Student Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Digital Reporting.

When she’s not on the job, Elizabeth enjoys gaming, cooking, and being outdoors, especially paddleboarding and hiking.