ESPN won three 2014 National Edward R. Murrow Awards, honoring excellence in electronic journalism, it was announced this week by the Radio Television Digital News Association. Outside the Lines was honored for two features while E:60 won for a segment that aired on ESPN Radio.
Outside the Lines’ “Carry On” won in the Network Television News Documentary category, while Outside the Lines’ “The Lady Jags: Losing to Win,” (Network Television) and E:60’s “Enemy Within” (Network Radio) were recognized in the Reporting: Sports group.
“Carry On” producer Jose Morales and reporter Tom Rinaldi updated the 2009 tale of two Cleveland high school wrestlers, one blind and one a double leg amputee, who found strength and friendship through their challenges. “Lady Jags” chronicled the Carroll Academy girls’ basketball team in Huntingdon, Tennessee, which had lost 213 straight high school basketball games but uses sports as a way to win in life. ”The Enemy Within” wasJeremy Schaap’s examination of the epidemic of soldier-on-soldier sexual abuse within the U.S. military, which aired on ESPN Radio’s The Sporting Life with Jeremy Schaap.
“We greatly appreciate this prestigious recognition from The Radio Television Digital News Association,” said Vince Doria, ESPN senior vice president and director of news. “Together, these pieces represent our continued commitment to storytelling and enterprise reporting across platforms.”
Andy Tennant, E:60’s executive producer added, “We are honored to have been recognized with one of journalism’s most distinguished awards. We are also grateful to the brave women who shared their painful stories with us. It was their wish, and ours, that by addressing the scourge of sexual assault in our military and by demanding accountability from the leaders of our military, including the secretary of defense, that change would be effected. This was the kind of story we pride ourselves on reporting at E:60, giving voice to the powerless and challenging the powerful.”
Previously this year, OTL was honored by the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism which named it among 46 winners of the 73rd Annual George Foster Peabody Awards. OTL won in the documentary category for NFL at a Crossroads: Investigating a Health Crisis. OTL was also named one of 14 recipients of the 2014 Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Award – ESPN’s first duPont Award – which honors outstanding broadcast, digital and documentary journalism and recognizes excellent reporting in the public service, commitment to important stories and innovative storytelling.
E:60, ESPN’s news magazine, which returns for its eighth season in September, last month received a National Sports Emmy in the Outstanding Sports Journalism category for “Children of the Ring,” which reports on Thailand’s growing sport of children’s professional Muay Thai fighting and the human rights debate it has spawned.
The Edward R. Murrow Awards will be presented at the RTDNA Awards Dinner in New York on October 6.