NewsVision, the UM student-produced newscast, won an Emmy at the 2002 Suncoast Regional Emmy awards held Dec. 7, 2002.
“Winning an Emmy is a huge honor,” Berger said. “The name implies a lot of recognition.”
Executive producer Garret Russo, news producer Maureen Capasso and sports producer Kyle Berger were awarded the Emmy in the Student program category at the Westin Diplomat hotel on Hollywood Beach.
“The newscast won an Emmy because of the fact that every aspect of the show worked,” said Carolyn Cefalo, faculty advisor. “The pacing, the content, the technical aspects, the look of the show and the talent and writing came together perfectly.”
The award-winning newscast was produced on Nov. 8, 2001 and was nominated for an Emmy over the summer of 2002, having already received awards from the National Broadcasting Society and the Associated Press.
“The show was well organized; all stories went together well,” Capasso, the current executive producer of NewsVision said. “This was as close to professional, without being professional, that we could get.”
The Suncoast Emmys are awarded by the regional chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which produces the annual Emmy Awards, and encompass English and Spanish-language broadcast and cable TV production in Florida, Puerto Rico, and portions of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Georgia.
Capasso said that the award-wining half-hour newscast for which they received the Emmy award followed the tragic death of Chad Meredith, the UM Kappa Sigma fraternity pledge who drowned in Lake Osceola on Nov. 5, 2000.
“There was a very hard-news aspect to it,” she said.
Capasso explained that NewsVision is a campus-based show produced twice a week by undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Communication. It covers local, state, national and international news with materials produced by UM students and CNN. NewsVision also covers sports and includes a feature segment called “Lifestyles.”
Berger, who is now a senior and still works as the Sports producer, said that much of the quality of the sports segment of the newscast is owed to the quality of the teams on campus.
“Trying to find a story on sporting events at [UM] is much easier than in other universities,” Berger said. “The teams are amazing. It’s really an exciting time.”
Berger added that most of the success of the show is also due to the facilities on campus and to faculty advisors who encourage a professional production.
“Without the School of Communication and the faculty advisors we wouldn’t be able to put on as good a show as we have,” Capasso said. “We were also all good friends – we produced a good show because there was never any conflict.”
“The award reflects the hard work and commitment to excellence of our students, faculty and technical staff,” said professor Paul Driscoll, the director of academic broadcasting at UM.
NewsVision is broadcast Tuesday and Thursday nights at 7 p.m. on Channel 24 on campus and on Coral Gables AT&T Broadband Channel 96. Both broadcasts are streamed live and archived online.
Andrea Alegria can be contacted at nealegria@aol.com.