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's Williams in running for IRE board seat

WTVF-Channel 5's chief investigative reporter Phil Williams is running for a seat on the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. at the upcoming Miami conference later this week. (Honest disclosure: Yes, your Webmaster plans to vote for him.) We'll let you know how it goes later this week.

Plaudits for 'Unsafe to Fly'

The recent story on WTVF-Channel 5 by our chapter board member Phil Williams titled "Unsafe to Fly?" -- about faulty wiring on airplanes -- has been singled out for commendation by the SPJ "News Gems" blog.