Celebrating the Art of Storytelling: The Murrow Awards

Since 1971, The Radio Television Computerized News Association (once the Radio-Television News Chiefs Affiliation) has given out the “Edward R. Murrow Awards” to honor amazing work in computerized news coverage. The Murrow Awards, one of the most distinguished in journalism,[citation needed] recognize local and national news stories that uphold the RTDNA Code of Ethics, exhibit technical proficiency, and highlight the significance and influence of journalism as a public service. Work that has won a Murrow Award shows the excellence that Edward R. Murrow set as the benchmark for the broadcast news industry.

Judging

A group of qualified journalists judges the submissions. Individual stations’ entries are evaluated locally. The regional Edward R. Murrow Awards are given to the victors from each locale, and they are moreover considered for the national awards. Each October, the RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Awards Function in New York City celebrates beneficiaries of national awards. The judges may decide that none of the entries in a certain category deserve an award, in which case none will be displayed.

Entry categories

There were nine divisions of National Edward R. Murrow Award champs starting in 2015 with the expansion of student prizes. Based on the measure of the media showcase they serve, local radio, local television, and online organizations are separated into two categories. For radio and television, Nielsen has determined these media market sizes.

Local radio stations with markets of 50 or more are referred to as radio small markets.
Local radio stations in markets 1–50 make up the radio large market.
Local TV stations in markets 50+ are considered small markets for television.

Local TV stations in markets 1–50 make up the television large market.
A radio network, syndication service, or content service that broadcasts to several markets is known as network radio.
A radio network, syndication service, or show service that broadcasts to numerous markets is known as network television.

Small Digital News Organization: 2,499,999 or fewer unique visitors per month.
Large Digital News Organization: 2,499,999 or more unique visitors per month.
Any individual enlisted in a high school, college, or college in the US, Canada, or another country is alluded to as an understudy.

Categories

The following categories are listed for the Edward R. Murrow Awards on the RTDNA website.

Overall Excellence: The submission consists of up to 40 minutes worth of examples of news coverage from the previous year, followed by a single newscast.

Newscast: A single broadcast from the previous year that was regularly scheduled.

Breaking News Coverage (Formerly Called “Spot News”): Entries may include up to 20 minutes worth of examples of a station’s reporting on a single, unplanned news occurrence.

Continuing Coverage: Entries may include up to 30 minutes worth of examples that demonstrate ongoing coverage of a significant developing story during the preceding year.

Feature Reporting: A single report that keeps going up to 10 minutes and covers a human interest or profile subject but isn’t breaking news or investigative in nature is known as feature reporting.

Investigative Reporting: Entries can be up to 15 minutes long and showcase instances of investigative reporting on a significant topic.

News Documentary: a section that addresses a requirement or needs in the station’s showcase for up to 60 minutes of coverage on a single subject.

News series: in-depth reporting on a particular topic with a maximum of 30-minute segments.

Hard News Reporting: A single, 10-minute difficult news piece that’s not breaking news or generally investigative in character is created for a newscast.

Sports Reporting: A single, pressed report of up to 10 minutes on a subject associated to sports. Play-by-play and anchored elements of sports programs are ineligible.

Excellence in Sound, (formerly known as “Use of Sound,”) is defined as up to 10 minutes of coverage of a particular topic or segment that demonstrates imaginative use of sound to tell a story.

Excellence in Video (Formerly “Use of Video”): An entry that uses video imaginatively to tell a tale for up to 10 minutes.

Writing: up to three recent instances, each no longer than 15 minutes, that show writing brilliance and effectively convey to the listener or spectator the mood and significance of events.

Multimedia (formerly “Website”): up to 15 URLs, including the main page of the news company, that exhibit outstanding news coverage and journalistic ability.

Excellence in Innovation (new for 2017): up to 30 minutes of audio or video content, URLs, applications, social feeds, or any other platform that exhibits innovative use of content, engagement, technology, and/or audience experience

Excellence in Social Media (new for 2017): list up to 10 URLs, apps, or other platforms that exhibit extraordinary use of social media as shown by the standard of journalism and the volume and quality of user involvement.

Notable winners

Instead of individual journalists, media groups as a whole receive the Edward R. Murrow Awards. Many of the categories, however, are for individual news items produced by freelance journalists. Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Holly Williams, Keith Olbermann, Bryant Gumbel, Brian Williams, Michael Moss, Serena Altschul, and Richard Engel are many well-known writers who have contributed to stories that have won Edward R. Murrow awards. On the RTDNA website, you can find complete lists of the winners and institutions.