It is a challenge to find any local TV news personality who has made as big an impact in as short of time as WGRZ-TV (Channel 2) anchor Kate Welshofer.
In a little more than two years at the NBC affiliate, she has her own show, “Most Buffalo,” billboards promoting her and now she has a prestigious award.
The Western New York native and St. Bonaventure University graduate, who arrived at Channel 2 after a decade working in Rochester and another decade working in Albany, has been honored by the Radio Television Digital News Association with a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in writing for compilation of her work.
Though the award is for writing, Welshofer's engaging presentation on "Most Buffalo" sells her well-written stories.
Like anyone who does things differently, Welshofer does have some detractors.
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Many of them are more traditional news viewers who aren't fans of her goofy, daily “Most Buffalo” challenge that involves viewers. But she answers the haters directly via social media, and this award might help silence them.
Or not.
Amusingly, one of her comments in her award-winning, 6-minute compilation discussed the noisiness of the internet.
“Quiet is the needle in the haystack of the internet,” she said.
Welshofer’s award is one of four Murrow Awards in the small market television category earned by Channel 2, which didn’t enter the recent New York State Emmy Awards.
Channel 2 also was honored for overall excellence, for a hard news story, “Worked to Death,” by Steve Brown and photojournalist Andy DeSantis, and for its multimedia work.
The Brown story concerned a South Buffalo man who committed suicide after working a heavy overtime load as a cell block attendant for the City of Buffalo Police Department.
“Although awards are not our primacy, it is an honor and tribute to our dedicated and talented team to have won the award for overall excellence four years consecutively and multimedia (formerly website) for five years in this highly competitive multi-state region,” said WGRZ General Manager Jim Toellner in a release. “Then, having three of our most skilled journalists also win individual awards makes it very special.”
WKBW-TV (Channel 7) earned one Murrow Award for investigative reporting for “The Malone Recordings: The Tapes That Brought Down a Bishop.” Investigative reporter Charlie Specht worked on several stories involving Bishop Richard J. Malone and the Buffalo Diocese that were edited by photojournalists Jeff Wick, Rob Neves and Patrick Merritt.
Specht and the station’s I-Team have now won Murrow Awards for three consecutive years.
Spectrum News earned one Murrow Award for news series for its coverage of “Flight 3407: 10 Years Later.”
On the radio side, WBEN-AM earned regional Murrow Awards for overall excellence, in the multimedia category and for its Sept. 5, 2019, newscast that started with a report on Bishop Malone “pushing back on calls to resign.”
The regional winners, who competed with TV stations in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, advance to the National Murrow Awards.
Attention, “Jeopardy!” fans — and I know there are a lot of them out there.
The syndicated program carried by WIVB-TV (Channel 4) gets the highest ratings of any program in Western New York most days.
And the complaints after one recent “Jeopardy!” episode was preempted for a coronavirus panel featuring members of Congress further illustrated its popularity.
The syndicator announced this week that four weeks of new shows, including the 2020 Teachers Tournament, will begin airing on Monday.
The quarterfinals of the Teachers Tournament begin May 25, with the semifinals and finals airing the week of June 1. More new episodes air the week of June 8.
The release didn’t say when the episodes were filmed. They are typically filmed several weeks in advance.
It is unclear if they were shot before social distancing became a thing. The producers surely would want to protect host Alex Trebek, who has been battling pancreatic cancer.
Sports Thought: One of the highlights of ESPN’s “The Last Dance” has been footage of the practices of the 1992 Dream Team and the competition between Michael Jordan and other NBA stars while he filmed “Space Jam.” The competition was so intense in both cases that it illustrated potential games without fans in attendance could still be must-see TV.
