Local TV site wins National Headliner Award
Michael Gay March 8th, 2008
One honor handed out in the 2008 National Headliner Awards stands out, awarded to local TV station website WBALtv.com. My colleagues won second place in Television Affiliated Online Journalism for their coverage of the Domino Sugar Plant Explosion. WBAL was the only local TV site to win an award. ESPN won first place in the same category for their amazing presentation titled “Ray of Hope.” The package tells an amazing story, and the web producers should be proud of the interactive they built to tell this story about a special life.
But, take a look at the recipients for the Online Videography category. The winners are all from newspapers. “Reporting for Duty” from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; “The Burning Man Experience; Electric Playa; New Frontier Implosion” from the Las Vegas Sun; and “Health Diplomacy” from the Miami Herald.
I congratulate the excellent work by the newspapers, but these awards provide further evidence of newspapers encroaching on videography — a category that would intuitively be dominated by broadcasters.
5 Comments Add your own
1. Z | March 9th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Most broadcasters won’t give people the time to do what newspapers do. The local paper doesn’t expect a story from every reporter or photog every day because their staff is four times our size. We don’t have that luxury. Be nice if we did. But even sweeps pieces are often day-turns anymore.
2. Bill Snead | March 9th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Z that is indeed one of the many reasons why broadcasters are failing to define video journalism on the web (and newspapers are), but it is not an excuse. There really aren’t any, if you exclude shortsightedness, arrogance and purposeful ignorance.
3. Chris | March 9th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
WBAL Radio (WBAL.COM) also won a National Headliner Award for Affiliated Online Journalism for its coverage of several stories including the Domino Sugar plant explosion, installation of Archbishop O’Brien, Ravens football, and Cal Ripken’s Hall Of Fame induction. Congratulations to News Director Mark Miller and his team for running the nation’s best local radio website.
4. Rocker | March 10th, 2008 at 6:25 am
It seems to me that most of the people I know in the TV/Online world don’t bother to submit to most of these awards. Probably don’t have the time…tend to run a little lean compared to the newspaper operations, and be less oriented to rounding up journalistic awards anyway.
5. Z | March 10th, 2008 at 7:12 am
You’ve got to be kidding me, Mr. Snead. There are plenty of reasons (not excuses), and saying there aren’t is indeed arrogance.
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