Three Hawaii broadcast newsrooms have a great deal to crow about as winners of the 2015 Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association.
KHON-TV’s entries won in the Overall Excellence, Newscast and News Series categories, while KGMB-TV and KHNL-TV won awards in the Breaking News and Continuing Coverage categories.
Radio news in the islands was represented by Hawaii Public Radio, which won three of eight awards announced for small-market radio stations in the four-market region comprising California, Nevada, Hawaii and Guam.
HPR News’ entries were honored in the Breaking News, Hard News and Writing categories.
The TV stations’ awards comprised five of only nine awards garnered by small-market stations in the region.
Honolulu’s KITV did not enter the competition this year.
The Overall Excellence award is presented by the RTDNA (formerly the Radio and Television News Directors Association) for the breadth of a television newsroom’s on-air and digital media offerings. KHON’s entry in the category is about one hour long and includes station promotional announcements, portions of newscasts and special programs, including one about Ala Moana Center, for example.
KHON’S newscast award was presented for its newest show, the 9 p.m. weekday newscast anchored by Howard Dashefsky and Marisa Yamane, which debuted in September.
The station’s investigation of a cold-case murder by Gina Mangieri and other investigative team members won the News Series award.
"I am so proud of the work our newsroom does on a daily basis, across multiple platforms," said Kristina Lockwood, KHON2 general manager, in a statement. "We have a talented and dedicated team committed to quality journalism and serving the viewers of Hawaii."
KGMB and KHNL, the news operation of which is referred to as Hawaii News Now, won awards for coverage of Hurricane Iselle in the Breaking News category and for coverage of the Big Island lava threat in the Continuing Coverage category.
"Awards are always a wonderful recognition, but we are more gratified that Hawaii News Now provided excellent coverage on two natural disasters that our viewers depended on us for," said News Director Mark Platte, via email. "Hurricane Iselle and the Hawaii Island lava threat were major events and viewers responded to us in a major way."
Lava also was behind two of Hawaii Public Radio’s awards, one in the Breaking News Category and the other, a Writing Award, while the effort to preserve the former internment camp at Honouliuli won the Hard News award.
The reporter on all three stories, which included interviews and natural sound for broadcast, as well as photographs for the HPR website, was Molly Solomon.
HPR officials were unavailable for comment Friday due to the rigors of their on-air pledge drive.
In the old days of broadcasting — you know, back in the early 1990s — once a story had aired, it was gone forever unless one had a recording. Now anyone with an Internet connection can view or hear the award-winning stories, via links from the RTDNA website.
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On the Net:
» 808ne.ws/MurrowWinners Hawaii2015
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
