KSTP bridge collapse coverage wins national Emmy
Here’s some good news on the Midway Chamber’s 2009 Business of the Year, Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.:
While TV news folks are gearing up for the Upper Midwest Emmy Awards at the Pantages Theater on Saturday, KSTP-TV, Channel 5, had a reason to start the celebration early. On Monday, the Hubbard-owned station won a coveted national News and Documentary Emmy in the category of regional breaking news for its coverage of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse. It’s the first national Emmy for KSTP, said news director Lindsay Radford, who was assistant news director at the time of the collapse.
“Everyone was excited, and for those people who covered it, it was one of the biggest stories of their lives,” said Radford. “Everybody knows where they were when the bridge went down and everybody remembers that level of disbelief that something like that would happen. And then I think the next thought is, ‘Wow, we really put a lot of effort into that day. We were the only station on for 25 hours straight.’ Luckily, because we have local ownership, we had the freedom to do that. We weren’t tied to having to make corporate happy with commercials airing. So that made a difference.”
With tickets for the national Emmy gala — held at Lincoln Center in New York City — going for $500 a pop, no one from the KSTP newsroom attended the ceremony. The station would rather have that money going back into the newsroom, said Radford. But KSTP wasn’t without representation. Harold Crump, vice president of public relations for Hubbard Broadcasting, happened to be at the show because he’s a trustee of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the group that presents the Emmys.
“I couldn’t believe we had beaten everyone in the country, including WNBC-TV in New York,” said Crump. “Wow, we won — it was just great. So I got it and brought it home.”
You can see some of KSTP’s 35W bridge coverage on their Web site at kstp.com/article/10975.
— Amy Carlson Gustafson
This was originally published in the Pioneer Press on September 23rd. You can read it here http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_13404470