NEW ORLEANS — Members of the Eyewitness News team were honored with 11 nominations in the Suncoast Regional Emmy Awards, including a nomination for overall news excellence.
WWL-TV was honored with more nominations than any New Orleans television station. The nominations announced Sunday honor work from broadcasters in Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Puerto Rico.
WWL-TV was nominated for the news excellence Emmy, honoring the staff’s overall efforts in covering breaking news, features, multi-part series and investigative reporting. The entry include highlights from the investigative series “Stench of Failure,” “Standard of Care,” “Mystery in Ashes,” “Global Wildlife Center: Paradise Lost?,” “Taken for a Ride” and “Highway Robbery.”
Anchor/investigative reporter Katie Moore and photographer/editor Derek Waldrip were nominated for an Emmy in the category of news special, for “Mystery in Ashes,” which chronicled the mystery surrounding the 2017 death of Nanette Krentel, the wife of a St. Tammany Parish fire chief.
Moore and Waldrip were also nominated in the investigative reporting category for “Standard of Care,” their series of investigative reports on coronavirus deaths at Louisiana nursing homes.
Waldrip and anchor/reporter Karen Swensen are nominated for a regional Emmy in the human interest category for “Rescue and Recovery,” the story of Jefferson Parish firefighter Danny Ziegler, who was badly burned and left in a coma after fighting a Metairie condominium fire, but later recovered.
Swensen and Waldrip are also nominated in the religion category for “Miracle Baby,” about a local child’s unexplained recovery from a serious illness, which has led some to call his healing a miracle attributed to Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, who is being considered for canonization in the Roman Catholic Church.
Investigative reporter David Hammer and photographer/editor T.J. Pipitone are nominated in the environmental reporting category for “Stench of Failure,” a series of reports highlighting mismanagement that led to a sickening smell from the Jefferson Parish landfill.
Anchor/reporter Charisse Gibson and photographer/editor Adam Copus are also nominated in the same category for “Victims of Progress,” raising questions about expansion of the petrochemical industry in St. James Parish.
Gibson and Copus are also nominated in the historic/cultural program category for their multi-part series and documentary, “Treme: Death of a Neighborhood, Survival of a Culture.” Additionally, Copus is nominated a third time in the video editing category.
Anchor Eric Paulsen and photographer/editor Steve Wolfram are nominated in the arts and entertainment category for “New Orleans' Cuba Connection.” Earlier this year, the pair traveled to Cuba on a cultural exchange trip with local musicians and students affiliated with the Trombone Shorty Foundation.
Producer Caegan Moore is also nominated in the arts/entertainment category for the locally-produced program, “Ya Mama N'em.”
Winners will be announced later in the year.