NBC Leads Way at Murrows

‘Old-Fashioned Philosophy’ Helped It Win 7 of 13 Awards

By Hillary Atkin, Special to TelevisionWeek

NBC will take home seven of the 13 national Edward R. Murrow Awards being handed out to television networks Oct. 15 in New York, including the top prize for overall excellence.

In a news year dominated by coverage of the war in Iraq, RTNDA judges rated NBC News the best of its competitors. The Peacock network also won the overall excellence award and numerous other Murrows last year.

"This is one of those honors that really resonates and makes people feel good about the work being done, and it is thrilling," said Steve Capus, president of NBC News. "In a time of gimmicks and people trying to do flash-in-the-pan ideas, we’ve gone back to an old-fashioned philosophy to cover the news. Viewers and peers and colleagues in the journalism world respond with these types of honors."

NBC will receive the Murrow for feature—hard news for "Dateline’s" "Colorado Shooting"; the investigative reporting award for "Dateline’s" "Bitter Pills"; the newscast laurel for "NBC Nightly News’" "London Terror Plot"; the award for spot news coverage for "High-Rise Plane Crash" on "Nightly News"; the Murrow Award for videography for "Dateline’s" "Rescue on Roberts Ridge"; and the prize for writing for "American Story With Bob Dotson" on "Today."

"We feel at the top of our game these days, and these awards reinforce that," Mr. Capus said. "We’ve responded aggressively on breaking news, like the terror plot and the high-rise crash in New York. We’ve done political coverage in a very aggressive manner, and helped define MSNBC on cable. Even with so much pressure on the business side of what we do, we’ve set up an organization that is nimble and can move quickly, that does not suffer from being a huge, lumbering bureaucracy and can move aggressively."

With "Dateline NBC" receiving three Murrow Awards, including one for a two-hour special on an ill-fated rescue attempt of an Army Ranger on an Afghanistan mountaintop, Mr. Capus noted that the show’s staff members are some of the best storytellers in the business. "The newsmagazine was declared dead in the water, but [executive producer] David Corvo has reinvented it," he said.

The award-winning hourlong "Bitter Pills" was the culmination of an 18-month investigation of how counterfeit prescription drugs can end up in Americans’ medicine chests. "Dateline’s" Chris Hansen went undercover as an American drug distributor to negotiate face-to-face with a Chinese counterfeiter who sold fake drugs that looked so real they could fool pharmacists—until the ingredients were tested. The deal was potentially worth $10 million, and the encounters were documented by hidden cameras.

For Mr. Hansen, who wins his fifth Murrow Award with this piece, the investigation began when some of his sources led him to investigators at pharmaceutical companies that were being victimized by counterfeit copies of their medications, which are not only useless but can be life-threatening to patients.

"I pitched the story thinking we could pose as businesspeople who wanted to import the drugs," said Mr. Hansen. "Steve Eckert, our producer, got to work right away on the Internet investigating importing counterfeit drugs from China, India and Pakistan, and it led to a relationship with Cherry Wong, whom we met in Hong Kong and Shanghai." Ms. Wong was later arrested and is serving an 18-month jail sentence.

"To me, it was shocking that so many people try to get rich from making, selling or introducing counterfeit drugs into the pipeline, knowing how vital these things are to so many people," Mr. Hansen said. "We found drywall in medications for blood pressure, high cholesterol, in Viagra and in Procrit. If these medicines are not exactly the way they should be, they could result in death. We also saw how it was possible in some states, because of secondary distribution processes, that counterfeits could end up in the neighborhood drugstore."

Within days after "Dateline’s" investigation aired, the FDA announced long-delayed rules to crack down on counterfeiting by implementing guidelines that will help track medicines from manufacturer to drugstore shelf.

"This one shows that if you invest the time and the effort and the risk involved (in going to China), it ends up being worth it, because you can produce an enterprising report, and that’s impact journalism," Mr. Hansen said. "You can talk until you’re blue in the face, but if you put on a face of the victim—and the criminal—and you go to the place and show how it happens in real time, it gets people to pay attention."

Mr. Hansen works with about five producers who specialize in investigative stories. On many of them, the crew’s safety is an issue. "We take every precaution we can, and David Corvo asks if we have enough security," Mr. Hansen said. "We have a very strict protocol, and I’m comfortable these guys have the expertise to protect us. Nothing’s 100 percent guaranteed."

NBC’s Bob Dotson is taking home his third Murrow Award for writing, which honors his body of work on "American Story With Bob Dotson." (He won the first Murrow writing award when it was instituted in 1999.) The segments submitted for judging include a story on a farmhand who achieved his dream of singing at the Metropolitan Opera; a man considered a brilliant surgeon although he never went to medical school or even college; the story of brothers who finally found their father’s missing submarine from World War II off the coast of Alaska; and a piece about an Idaho inventor who was a pioneer in the early days of television.

Mr. Dotson, who considers himself an "emotional archaeologist" and cites Charles Kuralt as his "professional godfather," has traveled the country for 30 years looking for inspirational stories of ordinary people who exemplify the character and values of American citizenry.

"I’ve gotten a great turn in a story because people don’t like silence," Mr. Dotson said. "The problem with our business is because we have a 24-hour deadline, our time is sliced too thin for thought. The pros know how to give us an eight-second soundbite that they’re giving to everyone in town. I’m not out there doing good news with people who have a publicist. Ordinary citizens come up with some interesting stuff, often with non-questions, just kind of chat. People will tend to tell you things that they would never normally tell you."

A graduate of Kansas University and Syracuse University who got his first television job as a student, Mr. Dotson said his storytelling philosophy came from his first news director, who told him to go beyond the "who, what, when, where, why, how" of journalism school and focus on "hey, you, say, so."

"‘Hey’ is nothing more than getting attention," Mr. Dotson explained. "‘You’ is why the story should instantly relate to the viewer, even if it’s a train wreck in Pakistan. ‘See’ is two or three facts you alone have observed in this day and age of getting the same information as everyone else. ‘So’ is why you should care. In this age when stories can be so complex, they’re often presented by PR spin doctors that shine the best light. With all the complexities, I ask myself, where am I with this and what would be my point."

Mr. Dotson said he wants to do "stories that stick," adding that he’s grateful to NBC for seeing the value in what he does. He has worked with the network since 1969, when he began a stint as a producer and director of documentary programs at NBC affiliate WKY-TV (now KFOR-TV) in Oklahoma City. He joined NBC News in 1975 as a reporter for the network’s Cleveland affiliate, WKYC-TV.

"Writing is becoming a lost art in our business," he said. "We’re driving in the fast lane, and more and more we’re screaming headlines. I think people yearn for a good story, told in such a way that it sticks. That’s the storytelling art, like a good movie or novel or even a magazine article."