August 06, 2011

NBC4 Tops 63rd Los Angeles Area Emmys

Governors Award given to longtime FOX11 anchor Christine Devine for her work with “Wednesday’s Child.”

It was a big night for NBC4 at the 63rd Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards, the annual Emmy ceremony for broadcast achievements produced or solely financed and controlled by the Los Angeles television stations or cable television systems. In addition to taking home 13 Emmys, leading all winners for the second consecutive year, the station swept the highly competitive regularly scheduled newscast categories, taking all three — the first station ever to do so.

Awards were granted in more than 45 categories at the ceremony, held at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre on the grounds of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in North Hollywood. The evening also included a presentation of the Governors Award to longtime FOX11 anchor Christine Devine for her work with the “Wednesday’s Child” initiative.

Presenters for the evening, which was streamed via live webcast at the Television Academy’s websites, Emmys.com and Emmys.tv, included more than 30 local anchors, reporters and producers.

NBC4’s top victories came at the end of the evening, when Channel 4 News at 5 P.M. was named outstanding regularly scheduled daytime newscast from 11:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m., followed by Today in L.A. at 6:00 A.M. being honored for regularly scheduled daily morning newscast from 4:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m., and culminating with Channel 4 News at 11:00 P.M. winning for regularly scheduled newscast from 7:00 p.m.-12:00 a.m.

Coverage of events in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti was honored in three categories. Reporter David Ono and editor and camera operator Jeff McIntyre of ABC7 received Emmys for serious news story — multiple report for their “Return to Haiti” segment; executive producer Rebecca Nieto and reporter Robert Kovacik of NBC4 prevailed in the category of crime/social issues for their report titled “L.A. Heroes: Untold Stories of Haiti”; and Ono was the winner for outstanding hard news reporting, which included his on-site dispatches from Haiti following the earthquake responsible for killing an estimated 300,000 people and leaving more than a million homeless.

Multiple awards were also given to coverage of the 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade. The Emmy for entertainment programming went to Parade Countdown on KTLA5. The station also prevailed in the category of live special events (programming) for its live coverage of the parade.

In an acceptance speech that was both heartfelt and humorous, Stephanie Edwards, who has hosted the annual event for many years with co-host Bob Eubanks, quipped that when the parade started 121 years ago, “Bob Eubanks and I were there.”

Extending an already impressive streak, Mary Harris of NBC4 won the award for outstanding news writer for the sixth consecutive year. Accepting her award, Harris thanked and introduced her father, who was in the audience, having flown in from New York to share the evening with her. Harris also took home an Emmy for outstanding education coverage for the report titled “Locally Green.” She shared the education award with producer Tim Howick and co-host Elita Loresca.

The award for outstanding non-news writer was captured by Steve Lopez of the KCET series SoCal Connected. In an amusing acceptance speech, Lopez, a longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, joked that he was perplexed by the name of the category in which he had won. “For 35 years I’ve been writing news stories,” he said, “and now I’ve won an Emmy as a non-news writer.”

Lopez was also part of the SoCal Connected team honored in the category of outstanding feature segment. In the year's winning segment, “Putting on Ayers,” Lopez caught up with Nathaniel Ayers, the subject of his book The Soloist, at a recording session for Ayers’ first CD. SoCal Connected also won in this category last year.

Bruce Hensel, medical reporter at NBC4, took the award for outstanding news feature reporting, and outstanding investigative reporting went to reporter David Goldstein, producer Nicolette Medina and camera person Michael Brandon of CBS2 News at 11 P.M. for the segment titled “DWP Drinking on the Job.”

The Television Academy’s Los Angeles Area governors, Greg Taylor and Sabrina Fair Thomas, introduced Governors Award recipient Devine, who came to the stage with two former foster children who had been placed with loving families through the efforts of “Wednesday’s Child,” the public service initiative devoted to finding adoptive homes for children in foster care through weekly profile segments during FOX11 newscasts.

Over the years, Devine's efforts have helped more than 500 children find homes. When she came to the stage to accept her honor, she brought two of them, named Matt and Darnell, with her, along with the parents who adopted them.

Following NBC4 in the award rankings were KTLA5 with six Emmys; ABC7 and CBS2 with four each; Fox Sports West, KCAL9 and KCET with three statuettes; KLCS with two; and CITYTV of Santa Monica/L.A. County Channel, Fox Sports Net/Prime Ticket, Fox Sports West/Prime Ticket, GTC6, KMEX, KOCE and KTTV-TV all took home one.

A complete list of winners is available here.

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