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.

Channel 5 wins National Press Club Award

Jennifer Kraus, Bryan Staples, Kevin Wisniewski and Mike Rose of NewsChannel 5 won the National Press Club Award in the broadcast category for consumer journalism for "An Alarming Failure." From the NPC Web site:

Nashville’s WTVF News Channel 5 won the NPC’s Consumer Journalism Award broadcast category for “An Alarming Failure,” a ground-breaking examination of the differences between the popular ionization-type smoke detector and the photoelectric model in a smoky fire.  The stories resulted in legislation being introduced in Tennessee banning the installation of ionization smoke detectors in new homes.

NPT, WTVF take lead in regional Emmy count

Nashville Public Television and WTVF-Channel 5 were the biggest local winners at the Midsouth Regional Emmys given out last Saturday.

NPT took 11 Emmys, including for historical and cultural documentaries, and historic or cultural program/special. WTVF took five, including for news excellence, investigative report for "Stories of Abuse," and business/consumer report.

WKRN-Channel 2 took three Emmys, and WSMV-Channel 4, WZTV-Channel 17, Vanderbilt University News Service and the Renaissance Center took two each.

Read the complete list of winners here.

Leaf-Chronicle, Tennessean, Southern Standard take top newspaper awards from TPA

From the TPA press release:

The Leaf-Chronicle also earned the most first-place honors with eight. It won for make-up and appearance, local features, best personal humor column, best spot news story, best education reporting, investigative reporting, public service and best sports photograph.

Scene's Woods is finalist for national honor

The Nashville Scene's Jeff Woods is a finalist for the new public service category in the 2008 AltWeekly Awards. The prize "recognizes the impact that stories and series done by member publications have had on their communities." He'll compete in a group with the Fort Worth Weekly, the Jackson Free Press, and the Weekly Alibi.

Scene Editor Liz Garrigan lauded Woods' work as "kicking tail":

In fact, I named the package of pieces "Mayor Bubba Smackdown," and we argued to the judges that the Nashville Scene provided a public service to Nashvillians by reporting and editorializing over several months' time that Bob Clement was far from the best choice to run this $1.8 billion major American city. An independent panel of judges apparently agrees, though the best we can hope for is probably third place as these types of journalism awards typically go to papers discovering that corporations are poisoning poor people, not to grumpy, unshaven wretches singularly obsessed with picking on political hacks desperately in search of power.