If you think local television news is all flash and trash, and radio news is just headlines, you’re missing part of the picture. Sure, lots of stations still follow the “if it bleeds it leads” philosophy, spending far too much time on car accidents and house fires, but that’s not all there is.
Last week, I was privileged to attend the Sigma Delta Chi awards dinner, where the Society of Professional Journalists recognizes the best of the best. I left inspired by the great work being done in markets large and small, in television and radio.
The TV awards highlighted reporting on health care costs and corruption and abuse of power–complicated topics that aren’t “made for TV.”
For example, Denver station KDVR’s coverage of a school district covering up reports of sex crimes on school grounds, which won the large market investigative reporting award. Reporter Chris Halsne and producer Chris Koeberl spent months tracking down incidents that weren’t being reported as required by law. Photojournalists Noah Skinner and Isaias Medina turned a document-heavy story into compelling television.
Minneapolis station KARE won a documentary award for a half-hour special based on a series of investigative reports about police departments scammed by double billing. And reporter Lee Zurik of WVUE in New Orleans picked up three awards for reporting on medical costs, abandoned wells, and judges breaking the law.
SPJ also recognized outstanding coverage by a one-person radio newsroom, KCLU in Santa Barbara, California. News director Lance Orozco won the breaking news award for covering both a mass shooting and a massive brush fire that broke out less than 24 hours later. And the award for small market radio documentary went to journalism professor Denise Dowling, who spent four years reporting Alex, not Amy, a story of growing up transgender in the rural west that first aired on Montana Public Radio and has since been picked up by several other NPR affiliates. (Full disclosure: Denise is a good friend who took me to the SPJ dinner as her guest.)
It’s a difficult time for journalists, who find themselves under attack as they try to do their jobs. So it’s more important than ever to recognize the good work so many of them do and, inspired by that work, to continue to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
