Channel 5 racks up the Emmys

WTVF-Channel 5 took home 15 regional Emmys Saturday night, including news excellence, best evening newscast and best investigative report.

The award for best investigative report went to Phil Williams' project on Davidson County General Sessions Court. Winning along with Williams were Bryan Staples and Kevin Wisniewski.

WTVF also had a second nomination in that batch as well.

WKRN-Channel 2 won for best daytime newscast and for best continuing coverage over a 24-hour period for coverage of the Good Friday tornadoes. Channel 4, which also had a nomination in the investigative reporting category, won for best continuing coverage of weather, also for the Good Friday tornadoes.

The Renaissance Center in Dickson and Bohan Advertising each took home two Emmys. WSMV-Channel 4, Nashville Public Television and Vanderbilt University News Service won one a piece. And WKRN's Anne Holt presented the Governor's Award to the Freedom Forum.

NewsChannel 5 wins the Pulitzer of TV news

My apologies to the Channel 5 folks for not having posted this earlier. Here's a snippet from the story on their site:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- WTVF-NewsChannel 5 has been awarded one of broadcast journalism's highest honors, the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, for the station's investigation of Nashville's General Sessions Court system, it was announced Thursday.

That exclusive investigation – "NewsChannel 5 Investigates: General Sessions Court" -- exposed judges and court employees abusing their positions, as well as a judicial system in which ticket fixing and political favoritism was rampant. The project was led by chief investigative reporter Phil Williams, along with photojournalist Bryan Staples and producer Kevin Wisniewski.

Bob Battle, former Banner business editor, dies at 82

From the Tennessean obit:

He started working part time with the Nashville Banner in 1943 and spent a career as a reporter, covering police, politics, entertainment, business and other beats, and retiring as vice president and senior business editor when the Banner folded in 1998.

Beth Fortune, Vanderbilt University vice chancellor for Public Affairs, started at the Banner in 1985 and spent 7 years there. She said Battle helped show her and other young reporters the ropes.

“Newsrooms are filled with great characters, and Bob Battle was one of the greatest,” she said.

Dobie's latest project 'as close to heaven as it gets'

Former Nashville Scene editor Bruce Dobie is now with Dobie Media Inc., which produces the EvieSays online calendaring platform (did that phrase exist five years ago?) for major media sites. The company is raising $1.5 million in new capital, our former chapter president Milt Capps writes in a new post at Venture Nashville:

Although Dobie said he misses writing, he described the daily challenges of advancing EvieSays as being "as close to heaven as it gets."

He explained: "At this moment, as the media world is reinventing itself and transforming into something digital, my little company is at ground zero. We are right in the middle of the creative destruction. This is much more entrepreneurial than the Scene. The Scene was a copy-cat--we simply started something that had done well in other markets. You can argue about how well or poorly we pulled it off, but it wasn't truly original.

"But at eviesays," Dobie continued, "we're writing the rules. It requires looking around corners, lots of imagination. On top of that, our potential audience is not just Nashville, but it's everyone on the planet who has access to a cell phone or computer. When I come to work in the morning like I did yesterday, and my sales guy is yelling out that we've just gotten an email from someone in Macau asking for our calendar, and then we all rush to look up just where the heck Macau is, well, it doesn't get any more exciting than that."

Proud to be a 15-year member of SPJ

When I took my mail out of the mailbox this evening, I didn't know why I was getting a little package from SPJ.

When I opened it up and shook it out, out fell a letter from headquarters -- and my 15-year pin.

It's a little hard for me to believe it's actually been 15 years, but I'll take headquarters' word for it. And I'm proud to have been a member of SPJ for 15 years now.

If you're a journalist and you're not a member of SPJ, you should be. Join now by clicking this link.

How has the Internet affected our industry? SPJ and the Federal Trade Commission need to hear from you

Middle TN Pro Chapter SPJ members and friends,

We all know how much the Internet has affected our industry. SPJ wants to hear from you about it.

As many of you know, the Federal Trade Commission will hold hearings Dec. 1-2 in DC on the Internet’s effect on news organizations’ business models. SPJ National President Kevin Smith will testify at those hearings.

The SPJ national committee on digital media needs to hear from journalists about what you think and what the FTC needs to know. I'm a committee member, and I'm asking all of you to please write up as little or as much as you want to share and e-mail it to us at spj_dmc@yahoo.com by Nov. 2. We will share your comments with the FTC and with Kevin.

The FTC is seeking thoughts on:

• the economics of journalism on the Internet and in traditional media
• how news outlets’ business models might evolve in response to the Internet
• innovative forms of journalism that have emerged on the Internet
• how competition may evolve in markets for journalism and advertising
• potential changes in governmental laws and policies to support journalism.

The digital media committee has a complete press release, with more details, posted online at this link.

Thank you,

Jennifer P in Houston
jennifer@texaswatchdog.org

SPJ calls on members to encourage their U.S. senators to vote for federal shield law

From an SPJ e-mail just now:

Dear SPJ members,

SPJ is calling on you! Help the Society fight for a federal shield law to uphold the free flow of information.

On Thursday, Sept. 17, the Senate Judiciary Committee will discuss, and hopefully pass, S. 448 - the Free Flow of Information Act. The bill would create a federal shield law that would grant protections to journalists who refuse to reveal confidential sources, even when compelled by a subpoena and the threat of penal action. Currently, journalists and their sources are only protected by privilege statutes or administrative rules in certain states. There is no federal shield law protecting journalists and their sources.

Now is the time to act. The nation's journalists need your voice. SPJ encourages members to contact their senators and let them know how important S. 448 is to a free press.

Every member's support is important, and we particularly encourage those represented by senators on the Judiciary Committee to contact that senator before he or she meets Sept. 17 to discuss and finalize S. 448. The following is a list of Senate Judiciary Committee members (Click on names for contact information):

Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Ranking Member
Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Edward Kaufman (D-Del.)
Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)
Charles Grassley (R-Iowa)
Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.)
Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
Al Franken (D-Minn.)
Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)
Arlen Specter (D-Pa.)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
John Cornyn (R-Texas)
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chairman
Herb Kohl (D-Wis.)
Russell Feingold (D-Wis.)

We also encourage all SPJ members to contact their senators and voice support for a federal shield law.

To learn more about SPJ's efforts, click here. Read shield law press releases sent earlier this year on SPJ News.

Thank you for your continued support of SPJ and this vital piece of legislation.