CBS 2 Chicago Wins Eight Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, Including Overall Station Excellence
(CBS) -- CBS 2 Chicago, which includes WBBM-TV, CBSN and cbschicago.com, won eight regional Edward R. Murrow Awards on Thursday, including the overall station excellence honor.
In addition to the overall exellence award, the station was recognized for excellence in diversity, equity and inclusion; best newscast; excellence in writing; excellence in innovation; digital (cbschicago.com and CBSN live streaming); hard news; and investigative reporting.
CBS 2 competed in Region 7, which includes stations from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. CBS 2 advances to the National Murrow Award competition in these eight categories.
The RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Awards are among the most prestigious in broadcast and digital news.
The Radio Television Digital News Association has been honoring outstanding achievements in electronic journalism with the Edward R. Murrow Awards since 1971, according to the RTDNA website.
In the diversity category, CBS 2 was recognized for its coverage showing how Black Chicagoans were dying at alarming rates from COVID-19. CBS 2 mapped the data to show where COVID-19 was hitting minority neighborhoods hardest.
In the innovation category, CBS 2 was selected for "Left In The Dark" a project showing that thousands of moments of police body camera video were never captured. Poor oversight is to blame.
In the writing category, RTDNA honored a composite of CBS 2 anchor and investigator Brad Edwards' work. Three features highlight his storytelling agility, and ability to tap into the raw emotion -- from seemingly humdrum issues, to matters of great societal concern.
In the digital category, CBSN and cbschicago.com were selected for its focus on two key strategies as users find new ways to get news. 1) Showcasing CBSN, a live and on demand streaming service of the station's content and 2) Providing deeper context on investigative and enterprise stories.
For both investigative reporting and best newscast, the Murrow judges selected CBS 2's coverage of Anjanette Young, who was naked in her apartment when Chicago police raided here home by mistake.
In the hard news category, CBS 2 won for a story about the plight of small landlords who could not evict gainfully employed tenants who were taking advantage of Illinois' eviction moratorium. They were skipping out on paying rent. The focus was on one landlord in particular, who was left homeless, forced to sleep in her car with her 5-year-old daughter.