Members of the WWL-TV staff were honored with nine first place awards from the Press Club of New Orleans, including for best sportscast, breaking news and investigative reporting. The awards were presented Saturday at the 61st annual Press Club awards ceremony at the NOPSI Hotel.
Reporters Paul Murphy and Danny Monteverde received the first place award for television breaking news reporting for coverage of the release of a list of clergy credibly accused of abuse by the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
Investigative reporter David Hammer won the first place award in the investigative reporting category for his series of reports “The Toxic Truth.” Hammer also earned third place in print investigative reporting and another award in print governmental/political reporting.
Hammer and Moore also won first place in continuing coverage for a series of consumer reports titled “Watching your Wallet.”
Executive producer Dominic Massa was awarded first place in the planned event category for coverage of the 50th anniversary Krewe of Bacchus parade.
Sports director Doug Mouton and producer Danny Rockwell received the first place award for best sportscast as well as the top award for sports special. That award was for a special program on the 20th anniversary of the Tulane football team’s perfect season. Mouton and Rockwell, along with photographer Adam Ney, also won third place for a Saints sports special.
Photographer/editor Brian Lukas earned first place in breaking news videography as well as a second place award in the same category. Photographer Adam Copus received the top honor in the photo essay category and photographer Steve Wolfram won first place for best visual storytelling. Wolfram also earned a second place award for sports videography.
Former WWL-TV news director Joe Duke, now a journalism professor at Loyola University, was also honored with a lifetime achievement award. Duke served as Channel 4 news director for more than a decade but his career also includes a stint at CBS News and KHOU-TV in Houston as well as photographer and manager at WDSU, WVUE, KATC and WBRZ.
Several former WWL-TV colleagues turned out to honor Duke at the ceremony, including Sally-Ann Roberts, Dennis Woltering, Bill Capo, Mike Hoss and others. A video accompanying the presentation featured comments from NBC News "Today" anchor Hoda Kotb and "CBS This Morning: Saturday" anchor Michelle Miller, both of whom were hired at WWL by Duke.
A second lifetime achievement award was presented posthumously to Frank Donze, a longtime reporter for The Times-Picayune and later a public relations specialist for Audubon Nature Institute. He died in November 2018. The award was accepted by his wife, Beth Finney Donze.
New Orleans Press Club
WWL-TV associate producer and Loyola student Andres Fuentes was also the recipient of a journalism scholarship from the Press Club.
Other WWL-TV second and third place winners were:
Katie Moore, General news reporting
Alexandra Cranford, Best weathercast
Mike Perlstein, Education reporting
Meg Farris, Feature reporting
Paul Murphy, Medical/health reporting
Danny Monteverde, Business reporting
Leslie Snadowsky, Business reporting
T.J. Pipitone, General news videography
T.J. Pipitone, Best visual storytelling
Derek Waldrip, Feature videography
Tim Matthews, Breaking news videography
Doug Mouton, Best sports feature reporting
Dominic Massa, Lifestyle reporting
Dominic Massa, Best critical review
David Hammer, Print governmental/political reporting
Ralph Malbrough, Best sports column
Doug Mouton, Danny Rockwell, Best sports show
Nick Chabarria, Paul Corcoran, Josh Meza, Best station promotion
WWL-TV staff, Best use of Facebook
Sam Winstrom, Sean Brennan, Best use of Twitter
Sam Winstrom, Caegan Moore, Mary Staes, Best social media campaign
WWL-TV staff, Best news website
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story included an award for WWL-TV for best newscast. That newscast has since been disqualified by the Press Club since it aired outside of the contest entry period.
